As
the working hours of junior doctors decrease, adequate handover of
patients becomes more important to maintain continuity of care and
avoid errors caused by information gaps.
A minimum dataset for surgical handover
should include the patient’s name, location (ward and bed number), date
of admission, diagnosis, procedure (with date), complications and
progress, management plan, resuscitation plan, consultant availability
(and instructions if not available), expected need for review, and name
of doctor completing handover and date to confirm that information is
current.
An electronic handover system is a
potential solution, but our survey shows that free-text entry into such
systems may be inadequate; prompts or predefined fields for handover
content are possible solutions.