AB070. SOH23ABS_202. A systematic review of interventions to improve daily handover in surgery
General Surgery II Session

AB070. SOH23ABS_202. A systematic review of interventions to improve daily handover in surgery

Jessica Ryan1,2, Fiachra McHugh3, Walter Eppich1, Dara Kavanagh4,5, Deborah McNamara6,7,8

1SIM Centre for Simulation Education and Research, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland; 2StAR MD Programme, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland; 3Department of Surgery, Mayo University Hospital, Mayo, Ireland; 4Department of Surgery, Tallaght University Hospital, Dublin, Ireland; 5Department of Surgical Affairs, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland; 6Office of the President, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland; 7National Clinical Programme in Surgery, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland; 8Department of Surgery, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland

Background: Poor quality handovers lead to patient harm and surgical teams receive little training in this area. This systematic review provides an up-to-date assessment of the types of interventions available to improve daily surgical handover.

Methods: This review was prospectively registered with PROSPERO (CRD42022363198). Ovid MEDLINE(R), PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane databases were searched for articles published up to July 2022. Comparative English-language studies describing interventions applicable to daily surgical handover were included.

Results: A total of 5,869 citations were reviewed by two independent reviewers. Thirty-four papers were included for systematic review, including 23 audits/quality improvement projects, 9 observational studies, and 2 randomised controlled trials. Interventions can be grouped into: formalisation of the handover process (n=9), improvements in tools used for handover (n=18), and team education only (n=7). Staff were educated on specific handover techniques in 4 papers [situation, background, assessment, recommendation (SBAR), n=3; illness severity, patient summary, action list, situation awareness, synthesis by receiver (I-PASS), n=1]. Only 10 papers reported patient outcomes, 6 of which found significant improvements (length of stay, n=4; weekend discharges, n=1; erroneous order entries, n=1; emergency response team calls, n=1; and number of patients missed on ward rounds, n=1).

Conclusions: There is a lack of prospective comparative data in the area of surgical handover with wide heterogeneity of reported interventions and outcomes. Few papers have used robust measures of patient outcomes, which are arguably the most important factors in this process. More research is needed in this area to generate levels II and III evidence specific to surgical handover.

Keywords: Continuity of care; information transfer; sign-out; surgical education; surgical handover

Acknowledgments

Funding: None.

Footnote

Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical Statement: The authors are accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

doi: 10.21037/map-23-ab070
Cite this abstract as: Ryan J, McHugh F, Eppich W, Kavanagh D, McNamara D. AB070. SOH23ABS_202. A systematic review of interventions to improve daily handover in surgery. Mesentery Peritoneum 2023;7:AB070.

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