TY - JOUR
T1 - Ensuring patient safety in care transitions
T2 - an empirical evaluation of a Handoff Intervention Tool.
AU - Abraham, Joanna
AU - Kannampallil, Thomas
AU - Patel, Bela
AU - Almoosa, Khalid
AU - Patel, Vimla
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - Successful handoffs ensure smooth, efficient and safe patient care transitions. Tools and systems designed for standardization of clinician handoffs often focuses on ensuring the communication activity during transitions, with limited support for preparatory activities such as information seeking and organization. We designed and evaluated a Handoff Intervention Tool (HAND-IT) based on a checklist-inspired, body system format allowing structured information organization, and a problem-case narrative format allowing temporal description of patient care events. Based on a pre-post prospective study using a multi-method analysis we evaluated the effectiveness of HAND-IT as a documentation tool. We found that the use of HAND-IT led to fewer transition breakdowns, greater tool resilience, and likely led to better learning outcomes for less-experienced clinicians when compared to the current tool. We discuss the implications of our results for improving patient safety with a continuity of care-based approach.
AB - Successful handoffs ensure smooth, efficient and safe patient care transitions. Tools and systems designed for standardization of clinician handoffs often focuses on ensuring the communication activity during transitions, with limited support for preparatory activities such as information seeking and organization. We designed and evaluated a Handoff Intervention Tool (HAND-IT) based on a checklist-inspired, body system format allowing structured information organization, and a problem-case narrative format allowing temporal description of patient care events. Based on a pre-post prospective study using a multi-method analysis we evaluated the effectiveness of HAND-IT as a documentation tool. We found that the use of HAND-IT led to fewer transition breakdowns, greater tool resilience, and likely led to better learning outcomes for less-experienced clinicians when compared to the current tool. We discuss the implications of our results for improving patient safety with a continuity of care-based approach.
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M3 - Article
C2 - 23304268
AN - SCOPUS:84880726941
VL - 2012
SP - 17
EP - 26
JO - Scanning Electron Microscopy
JF - Scanning Electron Microscopy
SN - 0586-5581
ER -