Time as a Key Topic in Health Professionals’ Perceptions of Clinical Handovers

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Author(s)
Watson, BM
Jones, L
Cretchley, J
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2014
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Clinical handovers are an essential part of the daily care and treatment of hospital patients. We invoked a language and social psychology lens to investigate how different health professional groups discussed the communication problems and strengths they experienced in handovers. We conducted in-depth interviews with three different health professional groups within a large metropolitan hospital. We used Leximancer text analytics software as a tool to analyze the data. Results showed that time was of concern to all groups in both similar and diverse ways. All professionals discussed time management, time pressures, and the ...
View more >Clinical handovers are an essential part of the daily care and treatment of hospital patients. We invoked a language and social psychology lens to investigate how different health professional groups discussed the communication problems and strengths they experienced in handovers. We conducted in-depth interviews with three different health professional groups within a large metropolitan hospital. We used Leximancer text analytics software as a tool to analyze the data. Results showed that time was of concern to all groups in both similar and diverse ways. All professionals discussed time management, time pressures, and the difficulties of coordinating different handovers. Each professional group had its own unique perceptions and priorities about handovers. Our findings indicated that health professionals understood what was required for handover improvement but did not have the extra capacity to alter their current environment. Hospital management, with clinicians, need to implement handover schedule processes that prioritize interprofessional representation.
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View more >Clinical handovers are an essential part of the daily care and treatment of hospital patients. We invoked a language and social psychology lens to investigate how different health professional groups discussed the communication problems and strengths they experienced in handovers. We conducted in-depth interviews with three different health professional groups within a large metropolitan hospital. We used Leximancer text analytics software as a tool to analyze the data. Results showed that time was of concern to all groups in both similar and diverse ways. All professionals discussed time management, time pressures, and the difficulties of coordinating different handovers. Each professional group had its own unique perceptions and priorities about handovers. Our findings indicated that health professionals understood what was required for handover improvement but did not have the extra capacity to alter their current environment. Hospital management, with clinicians, need to implement handover schedule processes that prioritize interprofessional representation.
View less >
Journal Title
Global Qualitative Nursing Research
Volume
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (http://www.uk.sagepub.com/aboutus/openaccess.htm).
Subject
Organisational, interpersonal and intercultural communication