What are we missing? The quality of intraoperative handover before and after introduction of a checklist

Intraoperative handovers are common in anesthesia practice and are associated with increased patient morbidity and mortality. Checklists may improve transfer of information during handovers. This before-and-after study sought to examine the effect of a checklist on intraoperative handover. We hypothesized that introducing a handover checklist would improve our primary outcome of completeness of data transfer.

From February to August 2016, anesthesia providers (residents, fellows, and consultants) at a single tertiary academic center participated in a handover study. Baseline handovers between anesthesia care providers were videotaped, analyzed, and compared with anesthetic records. An intraoperative handover checklist was then introduced, and handovers completed with it were videotaped. The completeness of handovers was compared between the baseline routine and checklist groups. The primary outcome was completeness of information transfer.

Sixty-seven anesthesia providers participated in the study. Use of the intraoperative handover checklist improved completeness of handover by 6% (95% confidence interval [CI], 2 to 10; P < 0.01). There was no relationship observed between the provider (consultants/fellows vs resident) of the handovers and the degree of completeness (95% CI, 3 to 8; P = 0.33). Complexity had a significant impact on the handover completeness with low or high complexity cases more completely handed over than those of medium complexity both before and after the intervention-a 6% increase for low complexity (95% CI, 1 to 11; P = 0.02) and a 9% increase for high complexity (95% CI, 3 to 14; P < 0.01).

Use of a checklist during intraoperative handovers improved completeness of data transfer. Handover checklists should be considered to improve handover completeness.