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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Appl Clin Inform 2021; 12(03): 647-654
DOI: 10.1055/s-0041-1731714
Special Section on Care Transitions

A Collaborative Partnership between the Multicenter Handoff Collaborative and an Electronic Health Record Vendor

Bommy Hong Mershon
1   Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
,
Andrea Vannucci
2   Department of Anesthesiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, United States
,
Trent Bryson
3   Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Management, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States
,
Felix Lin
4   Technical Services, Epic Systems Corporation, Verona, Wisconsin, United States
,
Philip E. Greilich
3   Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Management, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States
,
Guy Dear
5   Department of Anesthesiology and Pediatrics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States
,
Patrick Guffey
6   Department of Anesthesiology, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado, United States
,
Aalok Agarwala
7   Department of Anesthesiology, Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
› Author Affiliations Funding None.
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Abstract

Objectives The operating room is a specialized, complex environment with many factors that can impede effective communication during transitions of care between anesthesia clinicians. We postulated that an efficient, accessible, standardized tool for intraoperative handoffs built into standard workflow would improve communication and handoff safety. Most institutions now use an electronic health record (EHR) system for patient care and have independently designed intraoperative handoff tools, but these home-grown tools are not scalable to other organizations and lack vendor-supported features. The goal of this project was to create a standardized, intraoperative handoff tool supported by EHR functionality.

Methods The Multicenter Handoff Collaborative, with support from the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation, created a working group of frontline anesthesia experts to collaborate with a development team from the EHR vendor (Epic Systems) to design a standardized intraoperative handoff tool. Over 2 years, the working group identified the critical elements for the tool and software usability, and the EHR team designed a standardized intraoperative handoff tool that is accessible to any institution using this EHR.

Results The first iteration of the intraoperative handoff tool was released in August 2019, with a second version in February 2020. The tool is standardized but customizable by individual institutions.

Conclusion We demonstrate that work on complex health care processes critical to patient safety, such as handoffs, can be performed on a national scale through cross-industry collaboration. Frontline experts can partner with health care industry vendors to design, build, and release a product on an accelerated timeline.

Keywords

handoffs - collaboration - ergonomics

Protection of Human and Animal Subjects

No human subjects were involved in this project.




Publication History

Received: 07 January 2021

Accepted: 25 May 2021

Article published online:
28 July 2021

© 2021. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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