Exploring a Nursing Home-Specific, Interdisciplinary, Function-Focused, Communicative Framework Based on Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendation.
Min Sun Park, Su Jung Lee, Young Rim Choi and 1 others
PMID 33840770WHAT IT FOUND
Nursing home staff described SBAR communication as a way to share subtle functional changes, such as walking difficulties or eating problems.
Nurses acted as the central hub, receiving most referrals to assess medical needs before directing care to therapists or support staff.
Key findings
01Difficulty of eating was the most common situation requiring interdisciplinary communication, accounting for 15 of the 39 cases analyzed.
02Nurses were the most frequent accepting practitioners in these communication flows, receiving referrals in 17 cases, often to assess medical issues like pain or swallowing.
03The framework identifies four stages for sharing information: recognizing gradual or subtle functional changes, tracking resident history, assessing current issues, and recommending specific tasks to other disciplines.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPsWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study involved a small number of participants (28 staff) from only four nursing homes, which limits the generalizability of the specific communication patterns to other settings. The data is based on self-reported experiences and case examples collected during interviews, rather than direct observation of real-time clinical interactions. The study was conducted in South Korea, and cultural or systemic differences in nursing home staffing models may affect how applicable these specific SBAR flows are to other countries.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the high number of nurse referrals as evidence that nurses are overburdened or that other disciplines are underutilized. The study describes existing communication patterns, not an intervention that improved outcomes, so it does not prove that adopting this specific SBAR framework reduces errors or improves resident function.