OBJECTIVE: Patient handover is an important element of continuity, quality and safety in patient care. Handover without standardized protocols is prone to information loss and might be a possible danger to patient safety. Checklists are established methods that help to structure complex processes in other high-risk fields such as aviation. In the past few years, their implementation has attracted research interest in medicine. We hypothesize that a checklist for handover between anaesthesiologist and post-anaesthesia care unit nurse will increase the amount of information transfer during patient handover after anaesthesia.
DESIGN AND SETTING: A total of 120 post-anaesthesia patient handovers were recorded on video and analyzed. Forty handovers before the implementation of the checklist and 80 after the implementation of the checklist, randomized into two groups: with and without the use of the checklist.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: An overall number of items handed over, handover of specific items and duration of the handover were analyzed.
RESULTS: With the use of the written checklist, the overall items handed over increased significantly from a median of 32.4-48.7%. The duration of handover increased from a median of 86-121 s. Instructions about items that should be included in handovers, but without the use of a written checklist, was not associated with an increase in the number of items handed over or duration of the interview.
CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that the use of a checklist for post-anaesthesia handover might improve the quality of patient handover by increasing the information handed over.
}, year = {2013}, journal = {Int J Qual Health Care}, volume = {25}, pages = {176-81}, month = {04/2013}, issn = {1464-3677}, doi = {10.1093/intqhc/mzt009}, language = {eng}, }