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Incomplete nursing care can negatively affect care quality and safety. This rapid review found that missed or omitted nursing care in adults contributes to increased mortality, adverse events, and clinical deterioration. Included studies cited several causes (e.g., environmental factors, staffing levels and skill mix) as well as solutions (e.g., education, process redesign).

Medication reconciliations, including conducting a best possible medication history (BPMH), may occur multiple times during a hospital stay, especially at admission and discharge. By conducting BPMH analysis of 372 hospitalized older adults taking at least 5 medications at admission, researchers found that nearly 90% had at least one discrepancy. Lower age, total prehospital medication count, and admission from a non-home setting were statistically associated with more discrepancies.

Shared mental models contribute to effective team collaboration and communication. Based on interviews and thematic analysis, the authors explored mental models between the emergency department (ED) and skilled nursing facility (SNF). The authors found that these healthcare professionals had misaligned mental models regarding communication during care transitions and healthcare setting capability, and that these misalignments led to consequences for patients, professionals, and the organization.

Interprofessional communication is critical to safe medication management during transitions of care. Researchers conducted this ethnographic study to explore inter- and intra-professional communications during older adults’ transitions of care. Communication was influenced by the transferring setting, receiving setting, and ‘real-time’ communication. Lack of, or poor, communication impacted medication safety; researchers recommend more proactive communication and involvement of the pharmacist.

Building upon earlier work, the authors engaged a technical expert panel to reach consensus on a definition for omissions of care in nursing homes. The article details the terms and concepts included in (and excluded from) the proposed definition, provides examples of omissions of care, intended uses (e.g., to guide quality improvement activities or training and education), and describes the implications of the definition for clinical practice, policy, and research.  

Pharmacists are critical to ensuring safe transitions between acute care and skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). This retrospective study evaluated the frequency of missed doses of high-risk medications after hospital-to-SNF transfers and found that 60% of first doses of high-risk medications were given after the scheduled administration time. After implementation of a medication order process including pharmacist-led medication reconciliation, the average delay in medication administration decreased significantly. 

Physicians commonly use diagnostic algorithms and practice guidelines to individualize risk assessment and guide clinical decisions. The authors discuss the possible dangers of using race-adjusted algorithms due to their potential to lead to diagnostic errors and delays in care.

To support the development of a uniform definition of omissions of care in nursing home settings, the authors conducted a thematic analysis of 34 articles describing existing definitions and found broad agreement that delays or failure of care constitutes an omission of care, but differing views on whether to include adverse events in the definition of omissions of care. The authors reviewed an additional 327 articles reporting adverse events attributable to omissions of care, and identified nineteen event types, with the most common being all-cause mortality, falls, and infections.

The authors surveyed over 4,000 care aids from 93 urban nursing homes in Western Canada to assess the association of work environment with missed and rushed essential care tasks. During their most recent shift, over half of care aids (57.4%) reported missing at least one essential care task and two-thirds (65.4%) reported rushing at least one essential care task. Work environments with better work culture and more effective leadership were associated with fewer missed or rushed care tasks.

Advanced Directives (AD) and Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Therapy (POLST) are intended to improve end-of-life care by ensuring that patient's wishes are honored by health care providers. This perspective presents two cases in which preventable errors allowed for the use of unwanted life-sustaining therapies. Root cause analyses for these cases found that haste, inadequate communication, EMR discrepancies, knowledge deficits contributed to these errors. 

This implementation study describes a new workflow of a telephone call between discharging clinician at an acute care hospital and treating physician at a skilled nursing facility to improve handoffs. Researchers report increasing implementation of this "warm handoff," tempered by concerns about clinician workload and efficiency. The authors conclude that while warm handoffs show promise, the organizational and workflow context could better support this safety strategy.

Transitions from hospitals to long-term care facilities are associated with safety hazards. This prospective cohort study identified adverse events in the 45 days following acute hospitalization among 555 nursing home residents, which included 762 discharges during the study period. Investigators found that adverse events occurred after approximately half of discharges. Common adverse events included falls, pressure ulcers, health care–associated infections, and adverse drug events. Most adverse events were deemed preventable or ameliorable. The authors conclude that improved communication and coordination between discharging hospitals and receiving long term-care facilities are urgently needed to address this patient safety gap. A previous WebM&M commentary discussed challenges of nursing home care that may contribute to adverse events.

Standardized handoff tools are increasingly implemented to improve communication between health care providers. Although this systematic review identified several studies supporting the use of SBAR as a communication tool to improve patient safety, the authors suggest the evidence is moderate and that further research is needed.

Fragmented care transitions may lead to adverse events due to poor provider communication, disjointed continuation of care, and incomplete patient follow-up. In this study, site visits were conducted at 22 healthcare organization across the United State to determine facilitators and barriers to implementing transitional care services. Identified facilitators included collaborating within and beyond the organization, tailoring care to patients and caregivers, and generating buy-in among staff. Barriers included poor integration of transitional care services, unmet patient or caregiver needs, underutilized services, and lack of physician buy-in. Results suggest how institutions may wish to prioritize strategies to facility effective care transitions.