title: Quality of post-operative patient handover in the post-anaesthesia care unit: a prospective analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Anaesthesiology plays a key role in promoting safe perioperative care. This includes the perioperative phase in the post-anaesthesia care unit (PACU) where problems with incomplete information transfer may have a negative impact on patient safety and can lead to patient harm. The objective of this study was to analyse information transfer during post-operative handovers in the PACU.
  
  
  METHODS
  With a self-developed checklist including 59 items the information transfer during post-operative handovers was documented and subsequently compared with patient information in anaesthesia records during a 2-month period.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total number of 790 handovers with duration of 73 ± 49 s was analysed. Few items were transferred in most of the cases such as type of surgery (97% of the cases), regional anaesthesia (94% of the cases) and cardiac instability (93% of the cases). However, some items were rarely transferred, such as American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status (7% of the cases), initiation of post-operative pain management (12% of the cases), antibiotic therapy (14% of the cases) and fluid management (15% of the cases). There was a slight correlation between amount of information transferred and duration of post-operative handovers (r = 0.5).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The study shows that post-operative handovers in the PACU are in most cases incomplete. It appears useful to optimise the post-operative handover process, for example by implementing a standardised handover checklist.
authors.affiliation: Medical School, University Witten/Herdecke, Witten, Germany.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Milby
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Böhmer
authors.forename: M U
authors.initials: MU
authors.lastname: Gerbershagen
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Joppich
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wappler
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D058109:Airway Management; D000758:Anesthesia; D019072:Antibiotic Prophylaxis; D057189:Checklist; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D059408:Pain Management; D010149:Postoperative Pain / Q000188:drug therapy; D062209:Patient Handoff / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards*; D010360:Patient Transfer; D020250:Postoperative Nausea and Vomiting / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D011184:Postoperative Period; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011997:Recovery Room / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards*