Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/653703
9 NURSES & PATIENT SAFETY 5 Things to Know About Communication Errors, Nurses and Patient Safety By Shannon Barnet A pproximately one-third of malpractice cases involv- ing nursing cite a breakdown in communication, according to the recently published "Malpractice Risks in Communication Failures: 2015 Annual Benchmark- ing Report". e report was published by CRICO Strategies, a division of the Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions. is year, CRICO Strategies published its com- parative benchmarking report on how specific weaknesses in communication impact patient safety. For the 2015 report, CRICO analyzed more than 23,000 medical malpractice claims and lawsuits filed between 2009 and 2013 in which a patient experienced some degree of harm. Nurses were named in 647 of the cases analyzed. Below are five findings from the report related to commu- nication failures and nurses. 1. Among nursing cases, 24 percent reflected a patient mon- itoring error. 2. ree-quarters of communication failures in nursing cases occurred in an inpatient setting. 3. Nearly half (45 percent) of the cases resulted in a high-se- verity injury and one-third (33 percent) resulted in a patient death. 4. e factors most oen cited in nursing malpractice cases were communication failures among providers regarding a patient's condition (38 percent), poor documentation of clinical findings (21 percent) and unsympathetic responses to patient complaints (8 percent). 5. Seventy-two percent of the communication failures iden- tified in nursing cases occurred between providers and 35 percent occurred between providers and patients, meaning 7 percent involved both provider-provider and provider-pa- tient communication errors. "A failure to close the loop, to debrief on a patient or to read the nurses' notes can mean that critical information is not communicated where its needed," according to the report. "All too frequently, those gaps trigger — or fail to prevent — patient harm." n High Nurse Staffing Ratios Linked With Reduced Patient Mortality: 3 Study Findings By Shannon Barnet A study published in February in the online jour- nal BMJ Open suggests higher nurse staffing levels are directly linked to lower patient mortal- ity rates. Although the study was based in the U.K., the findings could have implications for nursing staff ratios in U.S. hospitals as well. Working on the study were researchers from the University of Southampton in the U.K., King's College London, Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and the New York University School of Medicine. The research team examined data from a survey of nearly 3,000 registered U.K. nurses across 46 hospitals and 401 wards. The team focused on two measures: the number of beds per registered nurse, physician and healthcare support workers (including healthcare assis- tants and auxiliary nurses) and the number of patients per ward nurse. The study revealed the following: 1. The mortality rate was 20 percent lower in trusts where registered nurses cared for six or fewer patients than those where registered nurses cared for more than 10 patients. 2. Similarly, the inpatient mortality rate was 17 percent lower on surgical wards with higher registered nurse-to- patient ratios. 3. Hospitals with more physicians per bed also had lower mortality rates but the research team found no evidence that healthcare support workers helped reduce death rates in hospitals. "This does not, in itself, provide a robust basis to iden- tify safe staffing thresholds but given the overall strength of evidence for an association, we are showing that, in En- gland, the registered nursing workforce is clearly associ- ated with patient safety," said Peter Griffiths PhD, RN, chair of health services research within the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Southampton. n The mortality rate was 20 percent lower in trusts where RNs cared for 6 or fewer patients.