2018 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Improving communication for an effective and safe patient handoff
| Project/Area Number |
15K16291
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| Research Institution | Tokyo Institute of Technology |
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Principal Investigator |
顧 秀珠 東京工業大学, 工学院, 助教 (20632615)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2015-04-01 – 2019-03-31
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| Keywords | Patient handoff / Patient safety / Communication / Assessment |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Corresponding to characteristics and latent factors of communication failures in patient handoffs as identified in the previous years, and on the basis of current protocols, new standard communication protocols were developed for the three common types of patient handoffs: from ambulance to hospital, between departments/wards in the same hospital, and nurses’shift changes. As there are various situations of handoffs, specific patient handoff protocols are necessary to be developed for evaluation of the above proposed protocols. For this purpose, choosing handoffs from ambulance to emergency department, from emergency department to general wards, and nurse shift handoffs, new protocols specific to each situation were developed.
In addition, based on the literature survey results and discussions with management personnel, an assessment tool for quality of handoffs was developed, including the indicators such as safety, efficiency and satisfactions of sender, receiver and patient. Applying the developed assessment tool, new protocols were evaluated after trials. Results showed that handoff quality increased a bit after implementing the new protocols, but further improvements are still needed.
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