Opportunity

Over the last two decades, research around the world has consistently identified poor communication practices in hospitals as a major cause of critical incidents — adverse events leading to avoidable patient harm. Effective communication among clinicians (e.g. nurses) and between clinicians and patients is therefore critical to the provision of safe and quality healthcare. To address this, our research in Hong Kong and in Australia shows that targeted, evidence-based training will improve quality and safety of patient care by improving healthcare professionals’ communication skills. With the proposed application, we can help Hong Kong nursing sector lead the way in patient care and professional development.

Technology

To explore the nurses’ perceptions and their actual handover practices, Dr Pun, together with his collaborators, set up an explorative case study in a large hospital in Hong Kong. Using video recordings, actual observations and analyzing nurses’ authentic spoken interactions at handovers, his team developed an “evidence-based practice” training module to support 50 frontline nurses for professional development and enhance their quality of nursing handovers. Pre and Post-training interviews and observations were conducted in order to evaluate the changes of their handover practice and the effectiveness of training.  In the training, the nurses learnt about the latest research findings and approaches to effective handover practices and two communication protocols, ISBAR and CARE, which were originally developed in Australia and currently being adapted to use in Hong Kong.

Advantages

• Significantly mitigating risks: lowering the number of critical incidents;
• Significantly lowering healthcare costs and increasing efficiency by reducing patients’ re-presentations, re-admissions, complaints and lengths of stay;
• Creating a more inclusive and democratic health system in which patients are active partners in their healthcare.

Applications

• Evidence-based training 
• Hospital Patient care
• Clinical communication practice