Standard outlines handoff process
The proper process for handoffs is outlined in The Joint Commission standard PC.02.0201.EP2, notes Carol Mooney, RN, MSN, senior associate director at the Standards and Interpretation Group, who adds that they formerly were covered under a National Patient Safety Goal.
"Typically when we move a goal into the chapter, it is because we have brought attention to it and the education was out there and there was more compliance, but we didn't want to eliminate our focus on it," she explains.
In fact, she notes, compliance levels for the standard are about 99%. So why would The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare involve numerous hospitals in an initiative to improve their handoffs? Klaus Nether, MT (ASCP) SV, a Black Belt with the center, says, "Studies have shown that in a typical hospital there are 4,000 patient handoffs every day. If you are doing a really good job 95% of the time that's about 200 failures a day, and the consequences of these can be serious: anything from inappropriate treatment to delay of treatment to extended lengths of stay and increased healthcare costs."
Mooney says that Element of Performance (EP) 2 under the standard states that the process for the handoff "provides for the opportunity for discussion between the giver and receiver of patient information." She adds that a note in the EP states that such information might include the patient's condition, care, treatment, medications, services, and any recent or anticipated changes in any of these.
Mooney notes that "just the setting itself" in the ED makes compliance a challenge. One way to ensure success, she says, is "to develop a standardized process so that various disciplines, such as nursing, know how to report off to the nurses on the units when the patient gets transferred up to the floor."
The proper process for handoffs is outlined in The Joint Commission standard PC.02.0201.EP2, notes Carol Mooney, RN, MSN, senior associate director at the Standards and Interpretation Group, who adds that they formerly were covered under a National Patient Safety Goal.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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