The impact of bedside handovers on relevant clinical indicators: A matched-controlled multicentre longitudinal study

To investigate the effects of bedside handover, as contrasted with traditional handovers, on length of hospital stay, unplanned readmission, hospital-acquired pressure ulcers (HAPUs), patient falls, unscheduled intravenous reinfusion and pain.

A multicentre matched-controlled longitudinal design.

Bedside handover was implemented at five intervention wards in a convenience sample of four hospitals (three surgical/medical wards and two wards for medical rehabilitation). Four control wards continued to use their traditional handover (two surgical-medical wards, one medical rehabilitation ward and one mixed surgical-medical rehabilitation ward; one for each hospital). Patient records, including reports on individual patients in the electronic incident reporting systems, were consulted (N intervention = 509; N control = 265). The study was carried out between May 2016-February 2018 and data were collected between March 2018-June 2018. The data were analysed using generalized linear mixed-model analysis.

No significant differences in length of stay, unplanned readmission, HAPUs, unnecessary intravenous drips, pain or patients falls could be attributed to the use of bedside handovers, whether over time or between the intervention and the control groups.

No long-term effects were found on patient safety arising from bedside handover. This lack of significance possibly indicates that: (a) caution is needed when generalizing the results of previous smaller-scale studies; and that (b) bedside handovers do not create hazardous situations for patients.

Nurses traditionally perform change-of-shift handovers without the patient. However, the growth in attention paid to reducing adverse events and the demand for more participative and patient-centred approaches in health care both suggest that bedside handovers might be a logical intervention. This study could not confirm the positive results found in the international literature on the impact of bedside handovers on patient safety. Bedside handover should thus be considered as an equally safe, more patient-centred alternative to traditional handover models.

ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02714582).