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Most organizations use form to facilitate handoffs

Accreditation Connection, March 28, 2008

National Patient Safety Goal #2 requires hospitals to improve staff communication, but it does not require them to do so with a form. Still, 77% of Association of Healthcare Accreditation Professionals (AHAP) members have a form to facilitate handoffs, according to AHAP's recent handoff communications benchmarking survey. And only 27% make the forms part of patients' permanent records.

Hopefully, the 23% of survey respondents who said they do not have a form have an appropriate process in place, says Elizabeth Di Giacomo-Geffers, RN, MPH, CNAA, BC, a healthcare consultant in Trabuco Canyon, CA, former Joint Commission surveyor, and member of the AHAP advisory board.

"The 27% that do not make the form part of the permanent record does not match the 23% that do not have a form," she says. "They must use something else, like a 'ticket to ride.' "

It's not surprising that most organizations have a form, says Gayla J. Jackson, RN, BSN, nurse manager at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA, and also a member of the AHAP advisory board. "It seems like we are all experimenting with different types of forms to help the process."

Thirty-seven percent of AHAP members who responded to the survey said they have one handoff form for the entire organization, while another 37% said they have many, department-specific forms.

For more information on AHAP, click here.

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