Improving communication from hospital to skilled nursing facility through standardized hand-off: A quality improvement project (December 2022)

Summary

Inadequate hand-off communication from hospital to skilled nursing facility (SNF) hinders SNF nurses’ ability to prepare for specific patient needs, including prescriptions for critical medications, such as controlled medications and intravenous (IV) antibiotics, resulting in delayed medication administration.

This project, published in Patient Safety, aims to improve hand-off communication from hospital to SNF by utilising a standardised hand-off tool.

Authors conclude that the use of standardised hand-off resulted in improved communication during the hospital-to-SNF hand-off and significantly decreased the wait time for the availability of prescriptions for controlled medications and IV antibiotics. Integrating standardised hand-off into the SNF policies can help sustain improved communication, medication management, and patient transition from hospital to SNF.