Practitioner-centred research: an evaluation of the implementation of the bedside hand-over

A practitioner-based enquiry (PBE) or 'practitioner-centred-research' (Rolfe 1998), was undertaken using action research to examine the concept of 'nursing hand-over'. The move away from the traditional style of hand-over (which involved either one or two people verbally relaying 'all' information to those nurses coming onto duty) to a hand-over that is based at the bedside with the patient and involves the patient and only those nurses accountable for that individual's care, was the focus of the study reported here. The study was carried out on a medical ward for people aged 65 and over and aimed to identify whether after 6 months (post-implementation of the new style of hand-over) all staff felt that key issues identified in a 3-month evaluation based primarily on quantitive data collection, had been addressed by using an action research methodology. Although reference will be made to the 3-month evaluation as it formed a vital part of the process of assessing the change to practice, the focus of the analysis will be the evaluation that took place after 6 months. The key objective was to assess the effectiveness of the planned implementation of hand-over at the bedside and the subsequent change to current nursing practice.