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Handoff Tool Enabling Standardized Transitions Between the Emergency Department and the Hospitalist Inpatient Service at a Major Cancer Center.
Am J Med Qual. 2018 May 01;:1062860618776096
Authors: Gonzalez CE, Brito-Dellan N, Banala SR, Rubio D, Ait Aiss M, Rice TW, Chen K, Bodurka DC, Escalante CP
Abstract
Communication failures during patient handoff can lead to serious errors. A quality improvement team created a standardized handoff tool/process (DE-PASS: Decisive problem requiring admission, Evaluation time, Patient summary, Acute issues/action list, Situation unfinished/awareness, Signed out to) for admitting patients from the emergency department (ED) to the hospitalist inpatient service of a tertiary cancer center. DE-PASS mirrors the institution's ED workflow, stratifies patients as stable/urgent/emergent, and establishes requirements for verbal and email communications between providers. Comparison of preintervention and postintervention results from the 1-month pilot revealed that within a 24-hour period, DE-PASS reduced the number of intensive care unit transfers by 58% ( P = .393), the number of rapid-response team calls by 39% ( P = .637), and time to inpatient order by 31% ( P = .004). ED physicians' and hospitalists' satisfaction with DE-PASS increased. Reduction in intensive care unit transfers was sustained after the pilot ( P = .029). DE-PASS feasibility was evidenced by 100% uptake. By stratifying patients by risk level, DE-PASS reduced admission-to-evaluation times for unstable patients, potentially improving patient safety.
PMID: 29779398 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]