Journal of hospital medicine : an official publication of the Society of Hospital Medicine
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Multicenter Study
Variation in printed handoff documents: Results and recommendations from a multicenter needs assessment.
Handoffs of patient care are a leading root cause of medical errors. Standardized techniques exist to minimize miscommunications during verbal handoffs, but studies to guide standardization of printed handoff documents are lacking. ⋯ Wide variation exists in the content of printed handoff documents. Standardizing printed handoff documents has the potential to decrease omissions of key data during patient care transitions, which may decrease the risk of downstream medical errors.