Improvement in communication during patient handoff between areas from a children's hospital

Patient handoff is an interactive process including data communication and responsible transfer in order to safely maintain the continuity of care. Failure in this process may result in inadequate care and favor the occurrence of errors.

To implement a standardized instrument for patient handoff from the intensive care unit (ICU) to the intermediate-medium care unit (IMCU), and compare communication between health care providers before and after the intervention.

Before-and-after study conducted at Hospital de Pediatría "Prof. Dr. Juan P. Garrahan." The intervention consisted in a written handoff form. The pre-intervention sample included patients transferred from ICUs to IMCUs between October 1st and October 31st, 2015. The post-intervention sample included patients transferred between March 1st and March 31st, 2016. A total of 4 IMCUs and 3 ICUs participated in the study. The main study variable was the written part of the handoff; in particular, whether it was timely and complete.

A total of 50 handoffs were analyzed for each stage. With the written handoff, there was an increase in the communication of clinical data in 88 % of variables (oral communication between physicians, treating physician, therapeutic adequacy, diagnosis, course, etc.); the difference was statistically significant.

After implementing the tool, there was an improvement in the transfer of patient clinical data relevant to the safe continuity of care.