Expiry of a handoff printed document

Abstract

The handoff is defined as the change of clinical information about patients for whom physicians are responsible for between doctors and medical teams, both printed and verbal.

Medical errors related to poor communication remain unacceptably common. Verbal handoffs are known to be high-risk source of communication errors and it may be improved to reduce adverse events.

The static nature of printed documents makes it likely that some of the information will quickly become inaccurate, increasing the potential for medical errors.

Computerised handoff documents integrated with electronic health records have been associated with improvements. Printing makes real-time automatic updating impossible, and therefore, increases the potential for inaccurate information.

The main goals of this study were to measure the average time to potential inaccuracy of a printed handoff, to determine the types of inaccuracy and to identify differences between day and night shifts, as well as surgical and non-surgical services.

They hypothesized that by the end of an overnight call shift, most handoffs documents would contain at least one error, which had the potential to impact patient care. They used the term  “half-life”.

By documenting the inaccuracies which can be expected on printed handoff documents, the authors hope to achieve a shift toward reliance on the electronic health records on screen real, real-time, with the ultimate desired result of improved patient safety.