Ticket to ride: reducing handoff risk during hospital patient transport.
Adverse events resulting from intrahospital transport are an understudied phenomenon. This article shares a comprehensive approach from one hospital's efforts to develop a system for safe transport. The authors discuss practical tips for implementation, examples of checklists and structured communication tools adopted, and methods to evaluate program success. Based on more than 12,000 monthly transports, their data demonstrated improvements in transport documentation, improved patient satisfaction with transport, and fewer patient adverse events. An AHRQ WebM&M commentary discusses the issue of intrahospital transport with suggestions for improving the safety of this process.