Whether you are a student at post-clinical meetings or a nurse speaking to a physician, I bet some report necessary. The template used the most in clinical settings is an SBAR. An SBAR is an acronym that stands for Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendation. Each section of the report or problem with guides the information in an organized fashion. The situation is a description of the issue your patient. Background includes any medical history, diagnosis, or medication, the assessment continues with the present state of the patient vital signs, pain assessment, or level of conscience. Concluding the SBAR with a recommendation include a suggestion to resolve the situation whether medication or intervention. (SBAR, n.d.)
The use of an SBAR was initially used in Aviation (Velji et al., 2008). It wasn’t until 2002 that the SBAR initially introduced in the healthcare setting (Stewart, 2017). A multitude of studies conducted on the implementation of the usage and the overall improvements in day to day exchanges. Velji et al. (2008) conducted a study looking at the adaptation, implementation and the evaluation of the SBAR. Results concluded an overall success in the perception of safety, teamwork across units and inter-disciplines, along with feedback and communication regarding the error. A literature study by Stewart and Hand (2017) reviewed 21 different studies of SBARS in different units; they dissected the themes, results, and methods. A consistent finding found that the SBAR exposed missing information in reports, an increase of data with a decrease of time in the transfer, and an organizational tool that bridges the communication between the physician’s “action-oriented” style and the nurse’s “subjective” style.
In nursing school, we had to write an SBAR out each week for the patients we were assigned. This template and technique used when reaching out to the physician or on-call, running ideas past other nurses or your nurse leader. The model is very straightforward, but as a student or even the earliest of nursing, this still seemed a little foreign to me. Each time this organizational technique used, the format becomes easier. Another item that makes an SBAR easier is practice and a better understanding of knowing what vital information to put in a report in the case of a patient with an extensive medical history.
Reference
SBAR Tool: Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendation. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ihi.org/resources/pages/tools/SBARToolkit.aspx&p=Devx.LB.1,5510.1.
Stewart, K.R., & Hand, K.A. (2017). SBAR, Communication, and Patient Safety: An Integrated Literature Review. MedSurg Nursing, 26(5), 297-305.
Velji, K., et al. (2008). Effectiveness of an Adapted SBAR Communication Tool for a Rehabilitation Setting. Healthcare Quarterly, 11(sp), 2-79. doi: 10.12927/hcq.2008.19653.