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- Title
Effects of Education on Interns' Verbal and Electronic Handoff Documentation Skills.
- Authors
Airan-Javia, Subha L.; Kogan, Jennifer R.; Smith, Megan; Lapin, Jennifer; Shea, Judy A.; Jessica Dine, C.; Ishida, Koto; Myers, Jennifer S.
- Abstract
Background Improving handoff communications is a National Patient Safety Goal. Interns and residents are rarely taught how to safely handoff their patients. Our objective was to determine whether teaching safe handoff principles would improve handoff quality. Methods Our study was conducted on the inpatient services at 2 teaching hospitals. In this single-institution, randomized controlled trial, internal medicine interns (N = 44) and residents (N = 24) participated in a 45- minute educational session on safe handoff communication skills. Residents received additional education on effective feedback practices and were asked to provide each intern with structured feedback. Quality of interns' electronic and verbal handoffs was measured by using a Handoff Evaluation Tool created by the authors. The frequency of handoff communication failures was also assessed through semistructured phone interviews of postcall interns. Results Interns who received handoff education demonstrated superior verbal handoff skills than control interns (P < .001), while no difference was seen in electronic handoff skills. Communication failures related to code status (P < .001) and overnight tasks (P < .050) were less frequent in the intervention group. Conclusions Interns' electronic handoff documentation skills did not improve with the intervention. This may reflect greater difficulty in changing physicians' electronic documentation habits.
- Subjects
TEACHING hospitals; INTERNS (Medicine); PSYCHOLOGICAL feedback; PATIENT safety; RESIDENTS (Medicine); COMMUNICATIVE competence
- Publication
Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 2012, Vol 4, Issue 2, p209
- ISSN
1949-8349
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.4300/JGME-D-11-00017.1