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Clinical handovers between prehospital and hospital staff: literature review

Clinical handovers between prehospital and hospital staff: literature review
Clinical handovers between prehospital and hospital staff: literature review
BACKGROUND:
Clinical handover plays a vital role in patient care and has been investigated in hospital settings, but less attention has been paid to the interface between prehospital and hospital settings. This paper reviews the published research on these handovers.

METHODS:
A computerised literature search was conducted for papers published between 2000 and 2013 using combinations of terms: 'handover', 'handoff', 'prehospital', 'ambulance', 'paramedic' and 'emergency' and citation searching. Papers were assessed and included if determined to be at least moderate quality with a primary focus on prehospital to hospital handover.

FINDINGS:
401 studies were identified, of which 21 met our inclusion criteria. These revealed concerns about communication and information transfer, and themes concerning context, environment and interprofessional relationships. It is clear that handover exchanges are complicated by chaotic and noisy environments, lack of time and resources. Poor communication is linked to behaviours such as not listening, mistrust and misunderstandings between staff. While standardisation is offered as a solution, notably in terms of the use of mnemonics (alphabetical memory aids), evidence for benefit appears inconclusive.

CONCLUSIONS:
This review raises concerns about handovers at the interface between prehospital and hospital settings. The quality of existing research in this area is relatively poor and further high-quality research is required to understand this important part of emergency care. We need to understand the complexity of handover better to grasp the challenges of context and interprofessional relationships before we reach for tools and techniques to standardise part of the handover process.
pre-hospital, prehospital care
1472-0205
577-581
Wood, Kate
6f07801b-33b5-493a-9022-6048ab5a2e75
Crouch, Robert
c741ee17-0804-435f-b735-69d8d467a8f0
Rowland, Emma
06b1f357-0ec9-4821-9e8f-410bea2666c3
Pope, Catherine
21ae1290-0838-4245-adcf-6f901a0d4607
Wood, Kate
6f07801b-33b5-493a-9022-6048ab5a2e75
Crouch, Robert
c741ee17-0804-435f-b735-69d8d467a8f0
Rowland, Emma
06b1f357-0ec9-4821-9e8f-410bea2666c3
Pope, Catherine
21ae1290-0838-4245-adcf-6f901a0d4607

Wood, Kate, Crouch, Robert, Rowland, Emma and Pope, Catherine (2015) Clinical handovers between prehospital and hospital staff: literature review. Emergency Medicine Journal, 32 (7), 577-581. (doi:10.1136/emered-2013-2013165).

Record type: Article

Abstract

BACKGROUND:
Clinical handover plays a vital role in patient care and has been investigated in hospital settings, but less attention has been paid to the interface between prehospital and hospital settings. This paper reviews the published research on these handovers.

METHODS:
A computerised literature search was conducted for papers published between 2000 and 2013 using combinations of terms: 'handover', 'handoff', 'prehospital', 'ambulance', 'paramedic' and 'emergency' and citation searching. Papers were assessed and included if determined to be at least moderate quality with a primary focus on prehospital to hospital handover.

FINDINGS:
401 studies were identified, of which 21 met our inclusion criteria. These revealed concerns about communication and information transfer, and themes concerning context, environment and interprofessional relationships. It is clear that handover exchanges are complicated by chaotic and noisy environments, lack of time and resources. Poor communication is linked to behaviours such as not listening, mistrust and misunderstandings between staff. While standardisation is offered as a solution, notably in terms of the use of mnemonics (alphabetical memory aids), evidence for benefit appears inconclusive.

CONCLUSIONS:
This review raises concerns about handovers at the interface between prehospital and hospital settings. The quality of existing research in this area is relatively poor and further high-quality research is required to understand this important part of emergency care. We need to understand the complexity of handover better to grasp the challenges of context and interprofessional relationships before we reach for tools and techniques to standardise part of the handover process.

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Clinical handovers between prehospital and hospitalPope Emerg Med J-2014-Wood-emermed-2013-203165.pdf - Version of Record
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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 10 August 2014
e-pub ahead of print date: 1 September 2014
Published date: July 2015
Keywords: pre-hospital, prehospital care
Organisations: Faculty of Health Sciences

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 372925
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/372925
ISSN: 1472-0205
PURE UUID: 5e59a6c0-81db-4fd7-993f-616348f0bcd0
ORCID for Catherine Pope: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-8935-6702

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 05 Jan 2015 13:01
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 18:45

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Contributors

Author: Kate Wood
Author: Robert Crouch
Author: Emma Rowland
Author: Catherine Pope ORCID iD

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