Members of the Rumford Hospital Birthing Center SBAR team are, front, Michelle Gilbert, RNC; standing from left, Joette Carlton, RNC, Faye Souve, RN, Shandi Averill, RN, and Nicole Nolette, RN; absent, Lynn Stoodley, RN.

Birthing Center story selected for conference

RUMFORD – Among the four Rumford Hospital storyboard presentations that were selected for display and discussion at the 2007 annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care was the initiative of SBAR Implementation on Maternity.

The process of placing a storyboard at the forum includes a lengthy application to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, which sponsors the forum. The institute, based in Cambridge, Mass., is a nonprofit organization that helps to lead the improvement of healthcare throughout the world. The application detailed the work of the quality team at Rumford Hospital and the measurable outcome of their initiative.

To improve communication between physicians and nurses when obstetrics patients are admitted, the SBAR Implementation on Maternity Team created an SBAR tool and set a goal to use it to consistently report vital information at least 75 percent of the time. (SBAR is a method of communication using predefined, essential elements to report more concisely and accurately.)

When the final results were tallied, the new tool had been used 100 percent of the time by nurses communicating patient assessments to physicians. Physicians and nurses were surveyed before implementation of the new tool and three months after.

“It’s vital when a mom is in labor that we communicate what’s going on accurately and quickly to the physician,” said Joette Carlton, nurse manager of the Rumford Hospital Birthing Center. “The SBAR tool helps us focus on the information we need to pass along.”