Quantitative analysis of the content of EMS handoff of critically ill and injured patients to the emergency department.

Handoffs between prehospital emergency medical services (EMS) providers and hospital emergency departments (EDs) are known to be suboptimal. This record review of 90 EMS-to-ED handoffs at a single academic medical center found that essential information was often omitted. The authors suggest that further training is needed to enhance the quality of these handoffs.