Managing perturbations during handover meetings: a joint activity framework.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Nursing Communication
• Patient Safety

Background:

• Handover meetings are crucial collaborative nursing activities.
• Frequent disruptions during handovers can compromise patient care continuity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the frequency of handover meeting disruptions.
• To analyze how nurses manage temporal, physical, and social boundaries during disruptions.

Main Methods:

• Direct observation and video recording of nursing handovers across four units in two Swiss hospitals.
• Transcription of recordings, identification of disruptions, and content/interactional micro-analyses.

Main Results:

• Nurses are the primary source of handover disruptions.
• Disruptions are managed collaboratively through multimodal communication, including verbal and non-verbal cues.
• A division of labor emerges to handle disruptions effectively.

Conclusions:

• Understanding handover disruptions is key to improving patient safety.
• Nurses employ sophisticated communication strategies to navigate and resolve disruptions in real-time.
• Effective management of handover perturbations enhances collaborative practice and care continuity.