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Inside the news: Texas nurses pick up the phone before shift change

HCPro's Weekly Update on the ANCC Magnet Recognition Program®*, December 16, 2008

While shift reporting may leave many nurses frustrated, it’s as easy as picking up the phone for staff at eight Seton hospitals in Central Texas.

Seton turned to Voice Care®, a telephone-based nurse reporting technology, to improve shift reporting communication and decrease end-of-shift overtime. Staff nurses simply pick up any organizationwide landline to record patient history and shift reports for the oncoming nurse. Nurses arriving for their shift can listen to the recordings immediately and address any questions or concerns face-to-face with the outgoing nurse.

Every unit is assigned an identification number. For example, the medical-surgical unit uses 02. Once a nurse picks up a phone, he or she dials the hospital’s code for the recording, the unit’s identification number, and their individualized security password. The unit’s identification number and nurse’s security password solidifies patient privacy. For example, a nurse from the med-surg unit cannot access patient information from the emergency department.

“Voice Care has been a great feature for patient safety,” says Nancy Mastronardi, RN, BSN, project coordinator for all Seton hospitals. “Because you record the patient’s information once and any staff nurse on the unit can listen to the recording and they hear the same information—it’s not someone relying on their memory for patient’s history, safety alerts, etc.”

Nurses voiced their concerns about the importance of still having face-to-face communication during patient handoffs, says Mastronardi. “So we always stress that Voice Care never replaces face-to-face communication—it’s just an added tool to improve shift reporting.”

Source: Integrated Voice Solutions

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