Manish Durgude

NurseShift

AI-Assisted Nurse Handoff Workspace

Manish Durgude

Overview

NurseShift is a clinical nurse handoff management system designed for hospitals. It streamlines the shift-to-shift communication between nurses using AI-powered handoff summaries, real-time patient tracking, and role-based access controls to protect sensitive Protected Health Information (PHI).

Timeline

November 2025 - January 2026 (3 months)

Team

Manish (Me), Anchal & Atharva

The Problem

Hospital handoffs promise continuity of care but rely on fragmented notes and memory, turning shift changes into high-risk moments for patient safety.

Patient handoffs that happen dozens of times per week, often rely on fragmented notes and memory during shift changes marked by time pressure, fatigue, and constant interruptions. When this exchange is unstructured, critical priorities become unclear for incoming nurses and invisible to leadership, increasing the risk to patient safety.

Fatigue

Risk

Overload

Inconsistency

Fragmentation

Inefficiency

Design Challenge

How might we help nurses deliver complete, prioritized handoffs without adding documentation burden, while giving leadership the data they need to improve safety?

A Day of nurse

I began by mapping the real rhythm of a nurse’s day.

My Question was,
Where do things most often break down, and why?

I found,
Time pressure, Burnout, Fatigue,Leadership, patient handoff, cognitive load, Risk and lot more reasons!

Clearly we needed the tool for safe patient handoff.

Research - Why Handoffs Matter

Every 12 hours, nurses transfer responsibility for dozens of lives. Yet in most hospitals, this shift handoff happens through paper notes, rushed hallway conversations, or buried EHR fields.

According to The Joint Commission(Health Organization),

80% of serious medical errors involve communication failures during handoffs.

I dug into how hospitals manage handoffs:

8-12 min

spending per patient data copying between screens was reported by nurses.

9%

hospitals use AI-assisted summaries, and almost none support bedside privacy or real-time flagging.

68%

nurses say their current handoff process is time-consuming and unstructured.

What was needed

I spoke to real clinicians and reviewed over 20 studies.

The top needs?

Less typing.
More structure.
Real-time info. And
A handoff that fits their shift, not the other way around.

Clearly we needed the tool for safe patient handoff.

This shaped

NurseShift: a system designed to generate smarter handoffs, reduce risk, and give nurses time back without making them hunt for the data they already documented.

Competitive analysis

Available

Partial/Varies

Not Available

Roles and permissions

Understanding the Ecosystem, Not Just One User

Early exploration made it clear that handoffs don’t exist in isolation. They sit inside a clinical hierarchy:

Bedside Nurse

Bedside nurses create and receive handoffs

Nurse Manager

look for patterns over weeks, not minutes

Administrator

Configure systems and ensure compliance

Charge Nurse

Monitor safety and staffing in real time

Receptionists

Getting patients registered

This led to a key UX insight:

A single interface cannot serve all users well.

Instead, NurseShift needed clear role boundaries, each with its own mental model and success criteria.

Design Challenge

How might we help nurses deliver complete, prioritized handoffs without adding documentation burden, while giving leadership the data they need to improve safety?

Personas

I created personas to understand the different goals, time pressures, and responsibilities of bedside nurses, charge nurses, nurse managers, and receptionists—reinforcing the need for clear role boundaries instead of a single shared interface.

Rachel Thompson
Nurse Manager
ABOUT
Age - 52
Experience - 28 years nursing, 8 years management
Unit - Medical-Surgical
Background:
Rachel manages a busy med-surg unit with 45 nursing staff. She's focused on quality metrics, staff development, and patient outcomes. She reports to the CNO and advocates for her team's needs.
Goals & Needs:
Track hand-off completion rates across shifts
Monitor patient severity distribution
Identify patterns in clinical flags
Ensure standardized hand-off quality
Frustrations:
Inconsistent hand-off documentation quality
Difficulty identifying which nurses need support
Limited visibility into real-time unit status
Pain Points:
No historical trend comparison (week-over-week)
Time spent manually reviewing hand-off quality
Balancing administrative duties with floor presence
Behavior & Preferences:
Tablet for rounds, desktop for analytics
Reviews Analytics dashboard daily
Values data-driven decision making
Prefers visual charts over raw numbers
+
David Martinez
Charge Nurse
ABOUT
Age - 38
Experience - 4 years bedside, 4 years charge
Shift - Day shift (7a-7p)
Background:
David coordinates patient flow and nurse assignments on his unit. He's the go-to person for problems during the shift and bridges communication between bedside nurses and management. He handles admissions, discharges, and coverage requests.

Goals:
Balance patient acuity across nurse assignments
Coordinate coverage requests efficiently
Monitor unit-wide patient status in real-time
Support bedside nurses during high-acuity situations
Frustrations:
Last-minute call-outs disrupting assignments
Uneven workload distribution
Difficulty tracking who needs break coverage
Pain Points:
Managing coverage requests across multiple nurses
Keeping track of pending vs accepted requests
Balancing own patient load with charge duties
Behavior & Preferences:
Mobile-first during rounds
Checks Unit Board every 30 minutes
Uses coverage request panel actively
Values quick visual acuity indicators
+
Emily Nguyen
Bedside Nurse
ABOUT
Age - 34
Experience - 11 years med-surg and telemetry
Shift - Night shift (7p-7a)
Background:
Jennifer is a skilled nurse who often precepts new graduates. She's efficient with documentation and known for thorough handoffs. She values her time and gets frustrated by redundant systems that slow her down.
Goals:
Complete accurate hand-offs efficiently
Document clinical observations consistently
Request coverage for breaks without disruption
Mentor newer nurses on handoff best practices
Frustrations:
Inconsistent hand-off quality from other nurses
Time pressure at shift change
Forgetting critical details during verbal handoffs
Pain Points:
Writing comprehensive hand-offs takes too long
No structured format led to missed information
Difficulty tracking which handoffs need action
Behavior & Preferences:
Mobile device at bedside
Uses AI-generated summaries as starting point
Edits and personalizes hand-off content
Confirms hand-offs promptly before leaving
+
Sarah Mitchell
Unit Receptionist
ABOUT
Age - 29
Experience - 5 years in healthcare admin
Shift - Day shift (8a-4p)
Background:
Sarah manages the front desk of the medical-surgical unit. She handles patient admissions, answers phones, coordinates with transport, and supports the nursing staff with administrative tasks. She's often the first point of contact for families.
Goals:
Admit patients quickly and accurately
Enter complete patient demographics
Assign patients to correct unit
Ensure nurses see new admissions immediately
Frustrations:
Paper forms causing data entry delays
Incomplete admission information from ER
No visibility into room availability
Pain Points:
Manual re-entry of patient demographics
Nurses unaware of pending admissions
No visual bed/room status display
Behavior & Preferences:
Desktop workstation primary
Batch processes admissions
Values streamlined digital forms
Appreciates real-time sync to Unit Board
+

Design

NurseShift uses a clean, clinical UI focused on clarity, fast scanning, and reduced cognitive load—designed for high-stress healthcare environments where mistakes matter.

Visual Style

Primary Typography

Inter

Medium, Bold

Secondary Typography

Arial

Regular, Bold

Brand Colors

#09698C

#F1F5F9

#64748B

#E6F7FC

#EF4444

#FFFFFF

Bedside nurse: My Shift Dashboard

A shift dashboard enables fast scanning with live patient status, while patient details are organized into Overview, Notes, Handoff, and EHR. Incoming nurses review SBAR-structured handoffs, confirm receipt, and use Bedside Mode to hide private notes during patient interactions.

Charge Nurse: Unit Board

A real-time unit view groups patients by nurse, highlights high-risk and support-needed cases, shows live handoff completion status, and logs overrides and support flags for accountability.

Nurse Manager: Analytics

Designed for patterns, not individual patients—surfacing handoff completion trends, severity distribution, common red flags, and AI vs manual handoff rates to support staffing, training, and quality improvement.

Administrator

Focused on configuration and compliance—managing users, roles, patient lifecycles, assignments, and audit logs, with clinical workflows intentionally removed to reduce confusion and risk.

Receptionist

A simplified, non-clinical workflow for admitting and discharging patients, with no access to clinical data and built-in guardrails to prevent errors.