Question

1. You have a patient with a suspected skin infection on his leg. What standard and isolation precautions do you need to follow? And Why?

2. Why is using the SBAR technique considered an evidence-based approach to hand-off reporting? and What information should the nurse include when using the SBAR technique?

Answer 1

1) Implementation of standard precautions is the primary strategy for prevention of transmission of infectious agents among patient and health care professionals.

The blood, body fluids, secretions except sweat may contain transmissible infectious agents.

Standard precaution include group of infection prevention practices that apply to all patients regardless of confirmed or diagnosed infectious status in any health care institute.

The precautions include hand hygiene, use of gloves, mask, eye protein, face shield etc. Equipment or items in the patient environment are prone to be contaminated with infection must be handled in a manner to prevent transmission like proper cleaning and disinfecting equipment, sterilising equipments etc.

2) Medical association and health care organisation are endorsing SBAR method as standard communication tool for handoff among health care providers.

SBAR may increase the memory of important steps and provide a structured and standardised process to follow during handoffs.

They are shown a reduction in adverse events during patient care.

This communication tool serves a shared mental model in patient condition and used to transfer patient care in various clinical settings.

SBAR is easy to use and can be modified to use in any clinical settings.

The nurse should include patient identification information, code status, vital signs and the nurse concerns. Identity information includes unit, patient room number etc. Nurse should state briefly about the problem, what is it, when it happened, how severe it is.