BACKGROUND The Joint Commission International Patient Safety Goal 2 states that effective communication between health care workers needs to improve. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of SBAR (situation, background, assessment, recommendation) on the incidence of serious adverse events (SAE's) in hospital wards. METHOD In 16 hospital wards nurses were trained to use SBAR to co...

a decade ago, sub-saharan africa accounted for 24% of the global disease burden but was served by only 4% of the global health workforce. the chronic shortage of medical doctors has led other health professionals especially nurses to perform the role of healthcare providers. these health workers have been variously named clinical officers, health officers, physician assistants, nurse practition...

OBJECTIVES To assess the impact of a CPOE system on medication-related communication of nurses and physicians. METHODS In six internal medicine wards of an academic medical center, two questionnaires were used to evaluate nurses' attitudes toward the impact of a paper-based medication system and then a CPOE system on their communication in medication-related-activities (medication work). The ...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effect of a standardized worksheet on physicians' and nurses' perceptions of their understanding of goals of care and on patients' length of stay in an intensive care unit. METHODS A worksheet was completed daily during multidisciplinary rounds and was posted at each bedside in the medical intensive care unit at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. Information rec...

OBJECTIVE To compare blood pressure measurements taken at home by physicians, nurses, and patients with office blood pressure measurement , ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and home blood pressure measurement. METHODS A total of 44 patients seen by a home care program were studied. Protocol 1 a) blood pressure was measured by the patient, a physician and a nurse during a regular home visi...

Foreign-educated physicians (FEPs), also known as "international medical graduates", represent a rich source of potential primary-care providers. Despite their high level of medical knowledge and skills as well as ethnic and cultural diversity suited to meet the demands of patients, FEPs face many barriers in their attempt to continue to practice medicine in the USA. The program of study at Flo...

As a nurse it is difficult for me to read this paper without feeling somewhat 'prickly' but at the same time I welcome May's attempt to address an unfashionable topic, which needs some debate. Why the defensiveness? It follows from certain statements May makes, for example his assertion that full colleague status for nurses with doctors, is connected with nurses taking on 'certain responsibilit...

OBJECTIVES To study the ethical reasoning of nurses and physicians, and to assess whether or not modified focus groups are a valuable tool for this purpose. DESIGN Discussion of cases in modified focus groups, each consisting of three physicians and three nurses. The discussion was taped and analysed by content analysis. SETTING Five departments of internal medicine at Danish hospitals. S...

The purpose of this study was to compare the attitudes of anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists toward collaboration with each other. Data for this descriptive, comparative study were gathered through a mailed survey to 501 nurse anesthetists and 353 anesthesiologists licensed to practice in 7 state of the United States. Attitude toward collaboration was measured using an adaptation of the J...

© 2011 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research Nearly a decade has passed since the Institute of Medicine released its seminal report To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System. The report described the US health care system as a decade or more behind other high-risk industries in its attention to ensuring basic safety. One recommendation was that Congress should create a center...