Handoff Horrors

Effective handoff communication is critical in healthcare, and it is often inadequate. Although the Joint Commission made this a National Patient Safety Goal 7 years ago, studies have documented deficiencies in handoffs between shifts, between units, and during transfers to other health care facilities. Clinicians have different expectations of handoffs; some want detailed information, some do not. Even the published literature describing handoffs is inadequate, so solutions to this problem remain elusive. Many tools have been created, but none completely solve the problem. An article from 2008 claimed that technology would make handoffs "orderly"; for MUSC, maybe enterprise Epic will solve this conundrum. We can only hope!

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