• Review
  • Published November 2012

Review of computerized physician handoff tools for improving the quality of patient care.

Li P, Ali S, Tang C, Ghali WA, Stelfox HT. J Hosp Med. 2013;8:456-463.

Clinical care handoffs occur multiple times every day for each hospitalized patient, and the use of information technology has been advocated as a means of standardizing and improving the quality of handoffs. Although this systematic review identified six controlled studies of computerized handoff tools, it found only limited evidence linking use of such a tool to improved patient outcomes. The available evidence (including a recently published study that was not included in this review) does indicate that computerized handoff tools improve the accuracy and completeness of physician tools, and may improve physician efficiency. A case of a preventable adverse event due to suboptimal handover is discussed in this AHRQ WebM&M commentary.

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