Wednesday
February 27
Doctors' Dining Rm
7:30 am - 9 am

All physicians are invited!

On March 3, Sharp Grossmont Hospital will roll out an ambitious hospital-wide communications initiative with a goal to reduce the number of sentinel events that are shown to occur because of communications breakdown.

Closed Loop Communication is a mechanism to ensure, clear, complete and accurate transfer of information and appropriate follow through. It involves three steps: (1) the sender designates a receiver by name to determine responsibility for action and initiates the message using standard terms and states expectations, (2) the receiver checks for understanding by repeating back the information and (3) the sender confirms and verifies.

90% of all clinical staff will receive training in Closed Loop Communication and SBAR to decrease the overall rate of adverse events related to communication and handoff failures.

Another technique is SBAR - which is useful when there is a need to articulate critical information quickly and where accurate and concise communications in necessary. It stands for
· Situation: What's the immediate problem/situation?
· Background: How did we get here? Provide brief context.
· Assessment: What do I think the problem is?
· Recommendation: What are we going to do to fix it?

Physicians are key stakeholders in this project's success and they play a critical role in patient- centered communications.

Jospeh Lopez, RN/Advanced Clinician on PCU 2West, prepared the attached presentation on the SBAR tool referenced above. His report displays outcomes from the SBAR pilot project done on PCU 2 West.

60-70% of the more than 2,455 sentinel events reported to the Joint Commission revealed that communication failure was the primary root cause.

Mark your calendar!
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Friday, March 7
Main Auditorium
12:30 pm - 2 pm