FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 10, 2006
Novi, Michigan

Softura is pleased to announce that an application developed by Softura for The University of Michigan and University if Illinois Nursing Departments was awarded the Susan Coleman Memorial Scholarship-Most Influential to the Field Award. Of the 100 abstracts received, this application has been deemed of exceptionally high scholarly merit by a committee of reviewers and will be awarded the Highest Scholarships given by this committee.

The HANDS Project Stands for “Hands-on Automated Nursing Data System (HANDS)”. This is a product of a "real-time" research driven initiative, standardizes documentation of the nurse's plan of care in the electronic health record and the hand-off. The application provides three main functions:

1) the long standing goal of the American Nurses Association (Committee on Nursing Practice Information Infrastructure) to generate electronic interoperable nursing data across organizations.

2) the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization's new Safety Goal (2006) requirement to "Implement a standardized approach to "hand off" communications, including an opportunity to ask and respond to questions.

3) It was also clear that clinical information system vendors are not structured to produce the desired standardization without government mandates. Our team's efforts have taken place on a neutral ground allowing a concentration on standardizing the capture of nursing care information across units, settings, organizations, and clinical information systems.

The tool comprises a common interface, database, rules for data entry, and standard nursing terminologies. The HANDS standardized communication process at each patient hand-off consists of a) creating mindful admission or update plan of care; b) use of the plan to efficiently structure the care information to be conveyed by the off-going nurse to the oncoming-nurse and c) heedful interrelating between the nurses about the plan that leads to a shared understanding of the patient's progress toward goals and care to be provided.

Most importantly, the HANDS Method promotes patient safety and nursing efficiency. Use of standardized terms and format provides a parsimonious way to help the nurse hold the larger picture of care that efficiently triggers attention to appropriate detail. Standardized big picture thinking, though desirable, is a major change in the way nurses think about and communicate their care.