Impact of implementing a structured patient handoff on communication in a pediatrics residency program

Introduction. Patient information transfers between professionals on different shifts are a particularly sensitive area for errors and omissions. Our objective was to evaluate the impact of implementing a structured handover (I-PASS) on data omission in patient information transfers between pediatric residents. Population and methods. The study was conducted in a public hospital in the province of Salta, Argentina, from November 14, 2020, to December 14, 2020 (pre-intervention) and from March 15, 2021, to April 15, 2021 (post-intervention). The design was quasi-experimental, before-and-after, uncontrolled. Pre- and post-intervention shift handovers were evaluated. The intervention included training resident physicians in a structured handover using the mnemonic rule I-PASS, teamwork training, and digitized written handover. The quality of the handover was evaluated through direct observation. Results. There were 233 pre-intervention and 245 post-intervention evaluations. The pre- and postintervention comparison showed a significant improvement in most key handover data. Distractions were reduced from 40.8% to 24.1% (p = 0.001); communication of severity increased from 36.8% to 63.2% (p =0.001). Conclusion. The introduction of the I-PASS program reduced the omission of sensitive data and interruptions, without prolonging handover duration.