Clinical trial NCT01855646: Improved Patient Handoffs to Prevent Sentinel Events
Official title: Patient Acuity Score With Improved Patient Handoffs to Prevent Sentinel Events
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Health Care Quality
Access and Evaluation
Lead sponsor: Duke University
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2013-05-16
Enrollment: 4344
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Brief summary: The overall aim of this project is to improve the quality of the handoffs between hospitalists on the general medicine service at Durham Regional Hospital with the intent of improving transitions of care. The intervention will be an improved and more structured face to face sign-out process using a standardized admission sign-out sheet, which is not part of the official medical record. Daytime admitting physicians will assign an acuity score to their patients in which the severity of illness will be scored from 1-7, with 7 being the most sick / likely to have rapid response team (RRT) or adverse event. The assignment of this score would be based off of the clinician's judgment in the patient's overall assessment. All patients, age \>18 years, admitted to the non-resident hospital medicine general medicine service at DRH will be study eligible. Data analysis will examine aggregate hospitalist perception of sign-out practice before and after intervention, total number of RRTs, unplanned transfers, and rapid responses pre and post intervention, percentage of hospitalist based patients of overall rapid responses pre and post intervention, percentage of hospitalists using acuity scores, and average and mean severity score of patients with rapid responses compared with those admitted. Patients have a risk of loss of confidentiality.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* patients age \>18 years
* admitted to the non-resident hospital medicine general medicine service at Durham Regional Hospital (DRH). (This would include transfers from outside hospital, the Emergency Room, intensive care units, and the Durham Rehab Institute.)
* Additionally, hospital medicine faculty who round on the non-resident general medicine service at DRH will be included for the purposes of completion of perception surveys.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Patients presenting for consults, rapid responses handled by surgical services and rapid responses as reason for transfer from Durham Rehabilitation Institute.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Comparison of RRT's and unplanned transfers pre and post intervention matching aggregate numbers month to month
timeFrame: End of Study, Approximately 6 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Physician attitudes towards sign-out process pre and post intervention
timeFrame: End of Study, Approximately 6 months
Other outcomes:
measure: Compliance rate monthly with sign-out sheet completion; will use simple descriptive statistics
timeFrame: End of Study, Approximately 6 months
Locations:
city: Durham
country: United States
facility: Durham Regional Hospital
state: North Carolina
Study officials:
References: