Pascarella, Vito. Bundled interventions of bridge orders and SBAR to improve emergency department throughput and communication in telemetry boarding patients. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-aqgm-xs38
DescriptionInefficient hospital throughput is a complex problem that affects the entire organization and the patients it serves. When inefficient throughput occurs, it generates safety, quality of care, and dissatisfaction, concerns for both patients and nurses (Bornemann-Shepherd et al., 2015). Multidisciplinary teams across the patient care continuum continuously strategize to improve throughput, preventing adverse safety events, poor outcomes, and patient dissatisfaction. This quality improvement (QI) project aims to improve the current transfer process of telemetry patients with assigned ready beds in the inpatient telemetry unit, a performance improvement (PI) initiative. The invention utilized to achieve the goal is implementing a care bundle of bridge orders (BO) and the Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendation (SBAR) communication method to improve ED throughput, creating an efficient, expeditious, and safe transfer process for positive patient outcomes. Efficient communication using a well-validated communication tool, SBAR, and BOs will ensure continuity of care until admitting physician (MD) enters a complete set of admission orders. The goal is to enhance the efficiency of throughput and handoffs to reduce opportunities for missed communication which could result in adverse patient events.