Quality Improvement in Handover of General Internal Medicine In-patients

University of British Columbia

Status: Completed

Conditions: Quality Improvement in Patient Handoff

Treatments: Other: Handover program

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01796756

H11-03542

Details and patient eligibility

About

Miscommunication during patient handover can jeopardize patient safety and is the focus of Quality Improvement initiatives by many organizations. It is widely recognized that such miscommunication is preventable using a number of strategies identified in the literature.

Currently, there is no formal handover process of General Internal Medicine in-patients, otherwise known as the Clinical Teaching Unit (CTU) at Vancouver General Hospital, which is a major patient safety concern. This project will implement a formal handover program and evaluate whether there are changes in resident satisfaction with handover, but more importantly, whether the investigators can improve patient outcomes.

Enrollment: 1,168 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Residents, medical students, and patients
• Residents and medical students will be any rotating through General Internal Medicine at Vancouver General Hospital
• Patients will be any admitted to General Internal Medicine and cared for during on-call hours (defined as 18:00 - 07:00)

Exclusion criteria

• None for residents and medical students
• Patients who are not being cared for during on-call hours (defined as 18:00 - 07:00)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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1,168 participants in 2 patient groups

Handover program

Experimental group

Description:

Standardized handover program Dedicated place and time Template Face-to-face communication Evidence-based education session Feedback and audit

Treatment:

Other: Handover program

Usual handover practice

No Intervention group