According to a recent study exploring the risk of patient morbidity and mortality associated with intraoperative handovers among anesthesia providers in a large academic tertiary care hospital setting, which of the following is most likely true?
Transfers of care between practitioners (i.e., “handovers”) are an inevitable and common component of today’s medical practice, including within anesthesia settings. Suboptimal information exchange during handovers may result in increased adverse patient outcomes. Recently, resident duty hour restrictions have been enacted within academic medical center settings, thereby increasing handover rates and perhaps adding to the potential for adverse events. Despite these trends and ongoing concerns, little research has explored the impact of care transitions on worsening patient outcomes.
A recent study performed at a large academic medical center sought to determine whether the total number of anesthesia care handovers was associated with an increase in a composite of serious postoperative complications. The total number...
