SHM Converge Scientific Abstract ePoster Gallery-Improving Physician and Bedside Nurse Communication Through Patient Arrival Huddles

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This project aimed to improve communication between bedside nurses and admitting physicians during new patient arrivals at a pediatric hospital. The team focused on creating structured “arrival huddles” within 2 hours of admission, increasing completion from 0% to 70% by February 2024.<br /><br />Using improvement science methods, an interprofessional team of physicians, trainees, and nurses developed process maps, cause-and-effect analysis, and key driver diagrams. They tracked three main measures: huddle completion within 2 hours, communication errors, and nurse/resident satisfaction with the impact on other duties. Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles began in February 2023 and included expanding the huddle from one resident team to all teams, routing arrival pages directly to admitting teams, and assessing nurse barriers.<br /><br />They also tested reminder strategies, including reminders from attendings, reminders from nurses, and automatic secure-message reminders through Voalte. The project found that nurse and Voalte reminders were most effective. A control chart showed special cause variation, indicating meaningful improvement in the process measure.<br /><br />Key conclusions were that huddles improve patient care, knowledge transfer, and relationships between staff. However, scheduling them immediately can be difficult because of competing priorities and unpredictable patient arrivals, and documentation was often delayed or forgotten. No safety reports linked errors to the admission timeframe.<br /><br />Next steps include expanding nurse readiness-to-huddle processes, improving shared documentation responsibility between nurses and physicians, assessing patient experience after expansion to all teams, and surveying staff satisfaction and workload impact after one year.

Asset Subtitle

Katherine Andreeff

Meta Tag

Author List Aries Gilchrist, Britanny Winckler, Dayna Chin, Erin Anderson, Jennifer Lusk, Katherine Andreeff, Laurel Gordon, Lisa Turni, Minkkwan Wungwattana, Samantha Hayward, Sarah Hedberg, Susan See, Theresa Kunnel

Category Innovations

Concept Transitional Care

Concept Communication Problem

Concept Huddle

Concept Patient Safety

Concept Structured Communication

Distinguished Non-Finalist

Presenter Organization Choc

Presenting Author Katherine Andreeff

Track Quality Improvement

Keywords

pediatric hospital

arrival huddles

bedside nurses

admitting physicians

patient admission

communication improvement

Plan-Do-Study-Act

interprofessional team

Voalte reminders

quality improvement

Transitional Care

Communication Problem

Huddle

Patient Safety

Structured Communication