RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Improving surgical weekend handover
JF BMJ Quality Improvement Reports
JO BMJ Qual Improv Report
FD British Medical Journal Publishing Group
SP u203298.w1533
DO 10.1136/bmjquality.u203298.w1533
VO 3
IS 1
A1 Caroline Culwick
A1 Chris Devine
A1 Catherine Coombs
YR 2014
UL http://bmjopenquality.bmj.com/content/3/1/u203298.w1533.abstract
AB Effective handovers are vital to patient safety and continuity of care, and this is recognised by several national bodies including the GMC. The existing model at Great Western Hospital (GWH) involved three general surgical teams and a urology team placing their printed patient lists, complete with weekend jobs, in a folder for the on-call team to collect at the weekend. We recognised a need to reduce time searching for patients, jobs and reviews, and to streamline weekend ward rounds. A unified weekend list ordering all surgical patients by ward and bed number was introduced. Discrepancies in the layout of each team’s weekday list necessitated the design of a new weekday list to match the weekend list to facilitate the easy transfer of information between the two lists. A colour coding system was also used to highlight specific jobs. Prior to this improvement project only 7.1% of those polled were satisfied with the existing system, after a series of interventions satisfaction increased to 85.7%. The significant increase in overall satisfaction with surgical handover following the introduction of the unified weekend list is promising. Locating patients and identifying jobs is easier and weekend ward rounds can conducted in a more logical and timely fashion. It has also helped facilitate the transition to consultant ward rounds of all surgical inpatients at the weekends with promising feedback from a recent consultants meeting.