Year-End Clinic Handoffs: A National Survey of Academic Internal Medicine Programs

While there has been increasing emphasis and innovation nationwide in training residents in inpatient handoffs, very little is known about the practice and preparation for year-end clinic handoffs of residency outpatient continuity practices. Thus, the latter remains an identified, yet nationally unaddressed, patient safety concern.

The 2014 annual Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine (APDIM) survey included seven items for assessing the current year-end clinic handoff practices of internal medicine residency programs throughout the country.

Nationwide survey.

All internal medicine program directors registered with APDIM.

Descriptive statistics of programs and tools used to formulate a year-end handoff in the ambulatory setting, methods for evaluating the process, patient safety and quality measures incorporated within the process, and barriers to conducting year-end handoffs.

Of the 361 APDIM member programs, 214 (59%) completed the Transitions of Care Year-End Clinic Handoffs section of the survey. Only 34% of respondent programs reported having a year-end ambulatory handoff system, and 4% reported assessing residents for competency in this area. The top three barriers to developing a year-end handoff system were insufficient overlap between graduating and incoming residents, inability to schedule patients with new residents in advance, and time constraints for residents, attendings, and support staff.

Most internal medicine programs do not have a year-end clinic handoff system in place. Greater attention to clinic handoffs and resident assessment of this care transition is needed.