Electronic tool helps anaesthesia trainee handovers

Abstract

The proportion of items spontaneously relayed increased from 54% without the checklist to 98% when using the checklist (p < 0.0001). More than 90% of participants felt that the checklist increased handover efficiency and communication skills. All participants stated that the handovers were more thorough with the checklist and that they would incorporate it into their daily practice. Intraoperative anaesthesiology handovers are especially challenging because of concurrent management of the patient DISCUSSION: With the intervention of the checklist, our results show that the use of a standardised intraoperative checklist improved the transfer of important patient information among anaesthesia trainees.

Systematic Review of Intraoperative Anesthesia Handoffs and Handoff Tools

“…26–28 Three studies were described as quality improvement projects 10,26,29 (Table 3). All prospective studies used a prepost design––3 studies included a matched control, 26,28,29 2 studies did not have a matched control, 10,20 and Jayaswal et al 27 did not report on the details of their control arm.…”

“…9,11,12,18,19,[23][24][25] Six studies used a nonrandomized prospective design to evaluate the effects of specific handoff tools on process-based outcomes such as clinician satisfaction with tool use, effectiveness of information transfer using the tool, and tool satisfaction (see section Prospective Studies of Intraoperative Handoff Tools). 10,20,[26][27][28][29] Retrospective Cohort Studies of Intraoperative Handoffs These studies included a total of 680,855 surgeries with 139,426 of these having at least 1 handoff (20.47%). Most of the included retrospective studies (n = 6 of 8) were conducted at a single academic medical center 11,12,18,19,23,24 ; 1 study was conducted at 2 sister hospitals within the same university, 25 and 1 study spanned multiple medical centers in the same region.…”

“…With handoff training and a 22-item checklist, Jullia et al 20 reported that the mean information transfer scores improved by 43% in the intervention group. Similarly, Lee et al 28 reported that information items spontaneously relayed increased from 54% to 98% with an electronic handover checklist and tutorial.…”

“…Information Transfer. Three of the 6 studies reported on information transfer, 10,20,28 related to the verbal relay of information from an outgoing clinician to incoming clinician during handoff. For example, Agarwala et al 10 described improvements with regard to discussion of intraoperative medications and fluid balance and improved item recall with their checklist.…”

“…Four studies were singlesite. 10,[26][27][28] Five studies were conducted at academic medical centers, 10,20,[26][27][28] with the exception of 1 study that included participants from both academic and nonacademic sites. 29 All studies were published in the last decade (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019).…”