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Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Nursing

Date Submitted: Jan 17, 2020
Date Accepted: Apr 19, 2020

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

An Evidence-Based, Nursing Handover Standard for a Multisite Public Hospital in Switzerland: Web-Based, Modified Delphi Study

Tacchini-Jacquier N, Hertzog H, Ambord K, Urben P, Turini P, Verloo H

An Evidence-Based, Nursing Handover Standard for a Multisite Public Hospital in Switzerland: Web-Based, Modified Delphi Study

JMIR Nursing 2020;3(1):e17876

DOI: 10.2196/17876

PMID: 34345783

PMCID: 8279455

A Web-based, Modified Delphi Study to develop an Evidence-Based Nursing Handover Standard for a Multi-Site Public Hospital in Switzerland

  • Nadine Tacchini-Jacquier; 
  • Hélène Hertzog; 
  • Kilian Ambord; 
  • Peter Urben; 
  • Pierre Turini; 
  • Henk Verloo

ABSTRACT

Background:

Ineffective communication procedures create openings for errors when healthcare professionals fail to transfer complete, consistent information. Deficient or absent clinical handovers, or failures to transfer information, responsibility, and accountability can have severe consequences for hospitalized patients. Clinical handovers are practiced every day, in many ways, in all institutional healthcare settings.

Objective:

The present study aimed to design an evidence-based, nursing handover standard for inpatients for use at shift changes or internal transfers between hospital wards.

Methods:

We carried out a modified, multi-round, web-based, Delphi data-collection survey of an anonymized panel sample of 264 nurse experts working at a multi-site public hospital in Switzerland. Each survey round was built on responses from the previous one. The surveys ended with a focus group discussion including a randomly selected panel of the participants to explain why items for the evidence-based clinical nursing handover standard were selected or not. Items had to achieve a consensus of ≥ 70% for selection and inclusion.

Results:

The study presents the items selected by consensus for an evidence-based nursing handover standard for inpatients for use at shift changes or internal transfers. It also presents the reasons why survey items were included or not.

Conclusions:

This modified Delphi survey method enabled us to develop a consensus- and evidence-based nursing handover standard now being trialed at shift changes and the internal transfers of inpatients in our multi-site public hospital in Switzerland.


 Citation

Please cite as:

Tacchini-Jacquier N, Hertzog H, Ambord K, Urben P, Turini P, Verloo H

An Evidence-Based, Nursing Handover Standard for a Multisite Public Hospital in Switzerland: Web-Based, Modified Delphi Study

JMIR Nursing 2020;3(1):e17876

DOI: 10.2196/17876

PMID: 34345783

PMCID: 8279455

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