Background: During sign-out (handover of care), information and responsibility about patients is transferred from one set of caregivers to another. Few residency training programmes formally teach resident physicians how to sign out or assess their ability to sign out, and little research has examined the sign-out process. Objective: To characterise the effectiveness of the signout process between resident physicians on an acute care ward. Design/methods: Resident physicians rotating on a paediatric acute care ward participated in a prospective study. Immediately after an on-call night, they completed a confidential survey characterising their night on call, the adequacy of the sign-out they received, and where they went to get information they had not received during signout. Results: 158 of 196 (81%) potential surveys were collected. On 49/158 surveys (31%), residents indicated something happened while on call they were not adequately prepared for. In 40/49 instances residents did not receive information during sign-out that would have been helpful, and in 33/40 the situation could have been anticipated and discussed during sign-out. The quality of sign-out (assessed using a five-point Likert scale from 1 = inadequate to answer call questions to 5 = adequate to answer call questions) on the nights when something happened the resident was not adequately prepared for were significantly different than the nights they felt adequately prepared (mean (SD) score 3.58 (0.92) and 4.48 (0.70); p = 0.001). There were no significant differences in: how busy the nights were; numbers of patients on service at the beginning of the call shift; numbers of admissions during a call shift; numbers of transfers to an intensive care unit; whether residents were ''cross-covering'' or were members of the general ward team; or whether the resident had cared for the patient previously. Conclusion: Although sign-out between resident physicians is a frequent activity, there are many times when important information is not transmitted. Analysis of these ''missed opportunities'' can be used to help develop an educational programme for resident physicians on how to sign out more effectively.Sign-out (handover of care) is a mechanism of transferring information, responsibility, and authority from one set of caregivers to another set of caregivers.

The number of nosocomial bloodstream infections due to Candida species in critically ill newborns is increasing. This pathogen may be vertically transmitted from the mother or nosocomially acquired in the nursery. The goal of this study was to identify the route of transmission of unique Candida species and strains from mothers to their preterm offspring. Specimens from mothers for fungal cultures were obtained before delivery, and specimens from infants for sequential fungal cultures were obtained at defined intervals. Candida species were identified by standard methods and were typed by electrophoretic karyotyping (EK) and restriction endonuclease analysis of genomic DNA (REAG) with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. Antifungal susceptibility testing was performed on all isolates. Fungal cultures were positive for Candida species in 12 (63%) of 19 mothers' specimens and in seven (33%) of 21 infants' specimens. EK and REAG revealed that both the mother and the infant in three (14%) of 21 mother-infant pairs were colonized with the identical strain of Candida albicans. C. albicans was most commonly transmitted vertically. Candida parapsilosis colonized other infants and could not be accounted for by a maternal reservoir.

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Non-type b encapsulated Haemophilus influenzae meningitis (two cases due to H. influenzae type e, two due to H. influenzae type f) was diagnosed in four children in a 6-month period at the University of Virginia. H. influenzae type b was the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in the United States before the introduction of an effective vaccine, whereas the other five encapsulated serotypes of H. influenzae rarely caused invasive disease. The clinical features of non-type b H. influenzae meningitis and the therapy for this infection are the same as those for type b H. influenzae disease. We report these four cases to document an increase in infection due to non-type b serotypes of H. influenzae, and we postulate that this change may result from the well-documented decrease in H. influenzae type b oropharyngeal carriage and disease that has occurred because of universal vaccination for H. influenzae type b.

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