Nursing Handover Research Project - Wintec Research Archive

Chapter Four
Discussion and recommendations
Introduction
The constructs from the text are some of the many that inform the discourse of nursing
handover. These constructs can stand alone but seem to interlink on many levels. Handover
cannot just be seen as handing over information, without seeing it in its entirety. The explicit
function of handover is to communicate information, but the construction of handover as just
a tool for delivering and receiving information, has the potential to limit its other functions.
These are functions that have less value associated with them in the literature, yet not to the
nurse. Such functions provide support on a professional and social level, encompassing nurse
as nurse, and nurse within the group, culture and institution.
This chapter discusses how handover is constructed with many competing constructs, two of
which are patient safety/risk management and nursing ritual. These differing constructs
highlight that there are different gains from each construction, but also there are losses.
Important nursing functions seem lost in the quest for patient safety and risk management.
The human factor for both the nurse and the patient is forgotten. The challenges to this
research project will be examined, and finally recommendations for practice will be shown,
looking at their significance to practice.
Discussion
In the 21 st century there has been a strong movement towards patient safety and risk
management. In the pursuit to achieve a safety culture there has also been a strong shift to
standardise practice. Standardisation has merits but flexibility is needed within this concept
to value local needs (ARCHI, 2010). Health care systems are under pressures; pressures such
as technology, many staff/many handovers, communication problems-patient/staff and
staff/staff, stress and tiredness, increase in patient acuity and staff shortages all add to the
potential for error (Wong, 2002).
26