Completing the Handoff

Banner Thunderbird Medical Center (Glendale, Arizona)

CSI Summary

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CSI Presentation

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CSI Toolkit

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Added to Collection

Project Topic

Improving handoff communication between the emergency department and inpatient units

CSI Participants

Angela DelVecchio, RN, BSN

Project Goals/Objectives

  1. Improve staff satisfaction 5 percent, as evidenced by 2017 employee satisfaction survey scores for Dimension of Hospital Handoff and Transitions
  2. Increase use of handoff tools by staff 50 percent within 12 months, as evidenced by follow-up surveys
  3. Decrease costs related to ineffective communication 10 percent within 12 months, as evidenced by reduction in incident reports related to communication

Project Outcomes

  1. Decreased incident reports concerning handoff communication 92.6 percent
  2. Reduced costs related to handoff communication 83.6 percent
  3. Improved patient safety related to the handoff process
  4. Achieved implementation of and compliance with a verbal workflow process
  5. Improved staff satisfaction concerning the handoff process
  6. These outcomes resulted in an estimated fiscal impact of $50,000.

Permission to Reuse Materials
The materials associated with this AACN Clinical Scene Investigator (CSI) Academy project are the property of the participating hospital noted above, not AACN. Requests to use content contained in the CSI team’s summary, presentation or toolkit should be directed to the hospital. We suggest reaching out to the hospital’s Communications, Marketing or Nursing Education department for assistance.

Disclaimer
The AACN CSI Academy program supports change projects based on quality improvement methods. Although CSI teams seek to ensure linkage between their project and clinical/fiscal outcomes, data cannot be solely attributed to the project and are estimations of impact.