I’m a Casual AIN in a big hospital so lots of different wards. Haven’t been here too long so haven’t gotten to all the wards yet.
Yesterday had a shift in a new ward (ortho) and was greeted by the most amazing handover sheet I have ever seen. You know how most handover sheets are multiple pages and can be disorganised with info just dumped in situation/background with no order? This one was on one page (Double sided, 30 Patients too, they used small print for more info) and was highly organised (Columns within columns, template up the top so it was stuck too and you could find where the info was. Asked about it and one of the nurses said the num/ CNs came up with it.
It made my job so much easier when floating. Could easily see what info I needed (how to mobilise when pt needed toilet, Pts cognition so I know how to communicate etc) and I didn’t have to flip through 5 sheets to find it quickly while walking to answer the buzzer. Thought I couldn’t go back to regular handover sheets after that.
Funnily enough today showed up to a new (to me) cardio ward and they were using the same template too! They had a few of the columns changed for cardio related info versus ortho info but very similar! So the template can definitely be used for very different wards. Haven’t been on the T/L side tho (obviously) so dunno if it’s more work to update or not.
Has anyone had experience with adjusting the handover sheet template in their ward, if so what did you do? If there’s interest I’ll update with the template once off shift (On break right now lol)
Edit: the template. Made up a patient for the example. This is cardio ward but can be altered (eg other wards not having cardiac monitoring, or another ward splitting hygiene and feeds assist for example, or a spot for EDD). Key is that the row size per bed doesn't change, Just the font size if more info. This keeps it to one page and is more visually pleasing. Bold lines to outline each bed also helps for readability.
