Positive Impacts of Electronic hand-off systems designs on Nurses' communication effectiveness

Different designs of electronic hand-off systems might have different levels of effectiveness; this study validated the effectiveness of systems with an Identify, Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation (ISBAR) design to one without such a design.

Adverse consequences in hospital commonly occur when there are breakdowns in the transmission of information between team members. To ensure information accuracy and consistency, some Taiwan hospitals implemented electronic hand-off systems. However, the effectiveness of such systems was not investigated.

A quasi-experiment was conducted to the nurses of two Taiwan case hospitals, one with ISBAR and the other with non-ISBAR design systems and 200 questionnaires were used to collect data.

The respondent rate was 72%. Using system with ISBAR design, nurses can enhance their communication effectiveness and further increase their individual benefits at hand-off. Using a non-ISBAR hand-off system, communication effectiveness depends solely on the nurses' individual cognitive and expressive ability.

System with ISBAR design can ensure effective information transmission among nurses for care continuity and prevention of adverse events.

Ensuring the design of electronic systems is adequate, nursing managers can save nurses' time and effort while using the system to perform their regular work effectively and gain competitive advantage.