Pilot study to develop a pre-operative "Cardiothoracic Clinical Handover Tool" and its effect on handover quality

Clinical handover is an essential step in the surgical patient's hospital journey, but one that is not without risk. Within cardiothoracic surgery, endeavours to protocolise post-operative handover from cardiac theatre to cardiac intensive care units have resulted in enhanced patient safety, but little to no effort has focused on the pre-operative setting and the dissemination of information throughout the surgical team.

We designed a pre-post study examining the quality of pre-operative cardiothoracic patient handovers before and after the introduction of an intra-departmentally designed "Cardiothoracic Clinical Handover Tool" based on the Royal College of Surgeons of England's guidelines for "Safe Handover".

Forty clinical handovers were assessed in each arm of the study. Handover quality improved from a score of 63.75% to 88.57% (p = < 0.001). This prolonged handover duration from a mean of 72.1 to 102.4 seconds per case (p = 0.003). Interruptions occurred in 27.5% of pre- and 25% of post-intervention handovers. Interruptions resulted in increased handover duration in both pre- and post-intervention groups (114.6 vs 77.7 seconds, p = 0.012) and poorer quality handovers in the pre-intervention group (51.28% vs 68.42%, p = 0.03) but failed to impact handover quality in the post-intervention group (88.57% vs 88.57%, p = 1).

Clinical handover tools have the potential to enhance the quality of pre-operative handover and protect against poor handover practices such as interruptions, safe-guarding patient welfare. We provide the first cardiothoracic specific pre-operative handover tool based on the RCSE guidelines.