title: Acute general surgery in Canada: a survey of current handover practices.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Today's acute care surgery (ACS) service model requires multiple handovers to incoming attending surgeons and residents. Our objectives were to investigate current handover practices in Canadian hospitals that have an ACS service and assess the quality of handover practices in place.
  
  
  METHODS
  We administered an electronic survey among ACS residents in 6 Canadian general surgery programs.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Resident handover of patient care occurs frequently and often not under ideal circumstances. Most residents spend less than 5 minutes preparing handovers. Clinical uncertainty owing to inadequate handover is most likely to occur during overnight and weekend coverage. Almost one-third of surveyed residents rate the overall quality of the handovers they received as poor.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Handover skills must be taught in a systematic fashion. Improved resident communication will likely decrease loss of patient information and therefore improve ACS patient safety.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University of British Columbia, 3669 Commercial St., Vancouver BC V5N 4G1, Canada. amanda.johner@gmail.com
authors.forename: Amanda M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Johner
authors.forename: Shaila
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Merchant
authors.forename: Nava
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Aslani
authors.forename: Anneke
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Planting
authors.forename: Chad G
authors.initials: CG
authors.lastname: Ball
authors.forename: Sandy
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Widder
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pagliarello
authors.forename: Neil G
authors.initials: NG
authors.lastname: Parry
authors.forename: Dennis
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Klassen
authors.forename: S Morad
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Hameed
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002170:Canada; D003142:Communication; D013502:General Surgery / Q000193:education / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D062209:Patient Handoff / Q000458:organization & administration*; D061214:Patient Safety; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000458:organization & administration*