title: Patient safety at handoff in rehabilitation medicine.
abstract: The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare has cited communication as the most frequent root cause in sentinel events, with failed patient handoffs playing a "role in an estimated 80% of serious preventable adverse events." Handoff, or transfer of patient care information, occurs formally and informally many times each day, within and between care teams, across all levels of care providers and between institutions. Handoff at rehabilitation admission is at a particularly high risk for communication failure, potentially affecting patient safety. This review of the patient handoff literature discusses the importance of safe handoff, the information to be included, barriers to handoff, and improvement methodologies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA. jsiefferman@gmail.com
authors.forename: Jason W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Siefferman
authors.forename: Emerald
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Jeffrey S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Fine
mesh_terms: D003266:Continuity of Patient Care; D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D010348:Patient Care Team; D061214:Patient Safety / Q000592:standards*; D010360:Patient Transfer / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012046:Rehabilitation