A Collaborative Partnership between the Multicenter Handoff Collaborative and an Electronic Health Record Vendor

Area of Science:

• Healthcare technology
• Patient safety
• Anesthesiology

Background:

• Operating room communication is complex, with factors hindering effective care transitions between anesthesia clinicians.
• Existing electronic health record (EHR) systems often have non-standardized, institution-specific handoff tools.
• Lack of scalable, vendor-supported tools impedes widespread adoption and improvement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To create a standardized intraoperative handoff tool integrated with EHR functionality.
• To enhance communication and safety during anesthesia care transitions.
• To develop a scalable solution for multiple institutions.

Main Methods:

• A working group of frontline anesthesia experts collaborated with an EHR vendor (Epic Systems).
• Over two years, critical elements and usability were identified for the tool.
• The EHR vendor team designed a standardized tool accessible to institutions using their system.

Main Results:

• The first version of the intraoperative handoff tool was released in August 2019, with a second version in February 2020.
• The tool is standardized yet allows for institutional customization.
• The development process involved national-scale, cross-industry collaboration.

Conclusions:

• Complex healthcare processes, like patient handoffs, can be addressed through national-scale, cross-industry collaboration.
• Frontline experts and healthcare industry vendors can effectively partner to develop and release patient safety tools.
• This project highlights an accelerated timeline for designing and implementing such tools.