Running head: THE IMPORTANCE OF NURSE REPORT SHEETS

The Importance of Nurse Report Sheets and How to Improve Them

Kaytlyn Stephens
Dixie State University

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The Importance of Nurse Report Sheets and How to Improve Them
Countless studies have been conducted on different aspects of nurse report sheets and
what information is more effective to have on them. Nurses use report sheets or brains to
organize their day and take and receive report with. There are a variety of different nursing report
sheets available for nurses to use depending on how many patients you have or what type of
setting you work in. The problem that is surfacing is what information should be on a nurse
report sheet and how can we improve nursing report sheets. Sometimes it is hard to find a brain
with all the information you want on it. Research has been done about nursing report sheets that
show how vital they are to a nurse. Nurse report sheets are much more than just the piece of
paper, it also goes in conjunction with actually giving hand-off shift report. Some of the articles
about nurse report sheets also talk about nurse-to-nurse report. These research articles have given
information on how to improve nurse report sheets. This paper examines research and peer
reviewed articles written by many different authors about the importance of report sheets, what
information should be on a report sheet and how to improve nursing report sheets.
Literature Review
Article One
In Kelley, Docherty, and Brandon (2013) article entitled Information Needed to Support
Knowing the Patient is about knowing our patients the authors researched what information is
really needed for nurses to know there patients. This study sampled 123 nurses who worked in
two different pediatric intensive care units (PICUs), 15 of these nurses reported to the email and
wanted to participate in the research project. It is important to know your patients, but you need
the right tools to help you do so. One of the results from this study was that the nurses did not
have enough information about the patient on hand. It is easy to go look up information in the

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chart or computer but when those technologies are not available, all you have is your report sheet
and your memory. There were three types of information sources that are needed for a nurse to
know her patient. The third one was nurses paper report sheet. Nurses that were interviewed
talked about nurse paper report in there interviews, the majority felt like it was puts everything
about the patient together (Kelley, Docherty, & Brandon, 2013). Another statement from a nurse
was this [report sheet] is something that lasts that shift and the nurse will have it kept in a
pocket, in the room at the patients bedside, or tucked inside the front side of our red chart
[bedside chart] (Kelley, Docherty, & Brandon, 2013). Through this research it shows the
importance of having a report sheet that has useful information on it so you are able to know
information about your patient. Also in the article the authors mentioned how easy it is to find
information about a patient because it is all located on one single sheet of paper. In conclusion of
the research article the authors felt future studies are needed to explore the specific information
temporarily stored on the paper-based report sheets and the work processes supported by the
report sheets (Kelley, Docherty, & Brandon, 2013). As you can see by this research article, it is
essential for nurses to have a nurse report sheet each shift and have updated and relevant
information on them so they can better know each one of their patients.
Article Two
Similarly Kim Wheeler (2015) studied the impact of nurse report sheets. In Wheelers
(2015) article she talked about effective communication and handoff shift report. In her research
she found out that each nurse wanted different information given to them in report and on their
report sheet. One nurse may view information on the report sheet as non-important but the other
nurse may feel that it is important. This makes it hard to have one standardized handoff tool;
which was the point of this article because Wheeler believed it would help with more effective

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communication and decrease the time it takes to give hand-off shift report. Wheeler believed
there were solutions and strategies help with this problem. One solution was to implement
standardized process to help guide the transfer on important information during shift report, but
she did not specify what the standard process should be and believe it should be left to the
organization or workplace to implement protocols depending on the setting (wheeler, 2015. p
13.) In conclusion to this article the authors stated that there is a need to standardize the process
of hand-off report and nurse report sheets but more information is needed to find out what those
process should be to make it more effective and overall help nurses be able to get the important
information they need for every patient.
Article Three
In another research article entitled Challenges to nurses' efforts of retrieving,
documenting, and communicating patient care information the authors Gail Keenan, Elizabeth
Yakel, Karen Dunn Lopez, Dana Tschannen, and Yvonne B Ford researched how information
flows. The authors refer to the nurse report sheet as a care information flow. This flow was
designed to help decrease errors and prevent new ones from happening. The authors did a direct
observation of the nurses work for a total of 200 hours. The results showed that there were three
themes that emerged. Those themes were (1) variation in nurse documentation and
communication; (2) the absence of a centralized care overview in the patient's electronic health
record, ie, easily accessible by the entire care team; and (3) rarity of interdisciplinary
communication (Keenan, Yakel, Lopez, Tschannen, & Ford, 2013). I focused on the first theme
about communication and documentation because this is related to nurse report sheets. In
conclusion to this article the authors found two different ways to address the missing pieces to
this research, the first one was standardize the format and contact of core information and test

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electronic health records. My focus on the first recommendation of standardizing information
would make it easier because all the staff will have the same information on their patients. The
conclusion of this article did not give a definitive findings but it gave very important information
on what information is needed to complete for this study.
Article Four
Unlike the other studies about nurse report sheets, Zou and Zhang (2016) researched the
hand-off report related errors after a united implemented a new standardized nursing hand-off
form (nurse report sheet). A new nursing report sheet was standardize to help the hand-off report
process and decrease nursing related errors that could have been prevented. In a prospective
intervention study, the authors used a group of nurses and did a pre-test and post-test to
determine the outcomes. The outcomes were encouraging, nursing errors started out at 9.2 per
100 admissions and dropped to 5.7 per 100 admissions (Zou & Zhang, 2016 p. 66-67). That is a
3.5% decrease in nurse related errors because of the use of a standardized nurse report sheet. The
authors concluded that more studies will have to be done to determine if a standardized nurse
report sheet would be beneficial to important patient outcomes and decrease on nurse related
errors.
Article Five
Lastly Carroll, Williams and Gallivan (2012) researched communication between nurses
in change of shift hand-offs. There is a problem with communication related to nurse shift
change hand-off reports. The authors used a multi-method study on two different medical units to
research this specific topic. As the authors progressed in the research, a common problem they
ran into was that each nurse and each shift had different expectations related to a good hand-off.
This makes giving and receiving a good report difficult. To help try and improve communication,

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they tried to use a standardize report sheet that had basic patient information for each patient the
nurse had. The authors found out that The incoming nurse is multi-tasking to read the written
documentation and also hear the outgoing nurses report (Carroll, Williams, & Gallivan, 2012, p
592.). The nurses were distracted while getting report because they were trying to read the
information on the nurse report sheet while the nurse from the previous shift was giving report.
This made the nurse miss important information. They concluded that it is important to give
ample time to receive report, read report sheet before report starts and ask questions if you have
questions. This article was the least helpful when researching my topic but it did give me good
insight on how nurse report sheets can actually effect nurse handoff shift report.
Future Studies
To be able to get a complete understanding about nurse report sheets and the information
that needs to be on them it is necessary to conduct more studies that examine all the different
aspects that go into nursing report sheets. This includes but is not limited to information that
nurses want on report sheets, what information is needed for different areas in nursing and how
to improve nursing report sheets. The relationships between nurses easy access to patient
information and patient outcomes are directly linked. There needs to be more studies and
research related to nurse report sheets to gain an understanding of what is the best way to
improve nurse report sheets and if standardized nurse hand-off tools and nurse report sheets help
patient safety and outcomes.
Conclusion
The purpose of this literature review was to review studies and articles about the
importance of report sheets, what information should be on a report sheet and how to improve
nursing report sheets. In the articles I researched I found that every article contributed to nurse

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report sheets. In the first article by Kelley, Docherty, and Brandon (2013) brought helpful insight
on what information is important for the nurse to know about each patient and how to contribute
that to the nurse report sheet. And in Zou, Xiang-Jun; Zhang, and Yin-Ping (2016) showed statics
about how standardized nurse report sheet can improve patient outcomes and help decrease nurse
related errors. These articles that I have found have helped me learn more about nurse report
sheets and there importance. This research has shown what information a nurse needs to know
and how that information can be applied to the nurse report sheet. The article gave different
perspective on nurse report sheets. More research needs to be done on this subject to show more
information about nurse report sheets.

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References
Carroll, J.S., Williams,M.,& Gallivan,T.M.(2012). The ins and outs of change of shift handoffs
between nurses: a communication challenge, BMJ Qual Saf, 21(7), 586-593.
Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1914&context=articles
Keenan, G., Yakel, E., Lopez, K.D., Tschannen, D., & Ford, Y.B. (2013). Challenges to nurses'
efforts of retrieving, documenting, and communicating patient care information. Journal
of the American Medical Informatics Association 20(2), 245-251. DOI: 10.1136/amiajnl2012-000894
Kelley, T., Docherty, S., & Brandon, D. (2013). Information Needed to Support Knowing the
Patient. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 36(4), 351363.
http://doi.org/10.1097/ANS.0000000000000006
Wheeler, K.K. (2015). Effective handoff communication. Nursing Critical Care, 10(6), 13-15.
doi: 10.1097/01.CCN.0000472849.85679.c4
Zou, X. Jun & Zhang, Y. P. (2016). Rates of Nursing Errors and Handoffs-Related Errors in a
Medical Unit Following Implementation of a Standardized Nursing Handoff Form.
Journal of Nursing Care Quality 31(1), 61-67. doi: 10.1097/NCQ.0000000000000133