When Kathleen Mikos, RN, MSN, CNO and vice president of patient care, came to Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey, IL, she couldn’t shake the sense of déjà vu when she found that patient handoffs took an hour to 90 minutes to complete.

At her previous hospital, Mikos had dealt with a similar issue—performing patient handoffs took longer than it should have. The lengthy amount of time became an issue with incremental overtime and also got in the way of patient care.

“I was concerned because during a period of an hour, where so many nurses are tied up, who is taking care of the patients?” says Mikos.