Improving Electronic Patient Handoff in an Orthopaedic Residency using the Listrunner^© Application

Miscommunication during shift change and other handoff events is a common source of malpractice claims and patient-care errors. An efficient patient handoff system is imperative to prevent miscommunication. Owning to limitations with our current handoff system and to an ever-increasing reliance on electronic health information, our residency program sought to modernize our handoff method.

To improve handoff communication, the HIPAA-compliant application Listrunner^© was adopted. Members of the orthopaedic trauma team were oriented to the new application. Change-of-shift patient handoff was transitioned from the current email system to List-runner^©. After three months of using the new application, a web-based questionnaire was administered to all members of the care team to assess their experiences, including perceived benefits and limitations of the Listrunner^© application.

Seventeen orthopaedic resident physicians and three orthopaedic trauma attending physicians completed the survey. While almost half of the respondents were satisfied using email as a checkout tool, more than half of study participants indicated that it lacked security and several users believed there was a need for improvement. Most indicated that Listrunner^© was easy to use, improved clinical efficiency, and improved patient care and safety. Seventeen of 20 respondents reported that they would like to continue using Listrunner^© as a check-out tool.

The Listrunner^© application was adopted quickly by our orthopaedic trauma team, whose members opined that the application increased the efficiency and accuracy of handoff when compared to the previous secure email system.