• G Brenier, V Minville, O Fourcade, and T Geeraerts.
• Département d'anesthésie-réanimation, CHU Toulouse Purpan, place du Docteur-Baylac, TSA 40031, 31059 Toulouse cedex 9, France. gbrenier2000@hotmail.fr
• Ann Fr Anesth Reanim. 2012 Mar 1;31(3):208-12.

IntroductionMedical handover is critical for quality of care in ICU. Time assigned to medical handovers can vary across different units, with significant impact on the organization of medical work. We aimed to study the time spent for medical handover in ICU and its variation across academic, general and private hospitals in the area of the South West of France, the Midi-Pyrénées region.MethodsBetween August and October 2010, we questioned by phone, 86 physicians issued from 19 different ICUs. This prospective observational study mainly focused on four items: unit's characteristics, health diaries organization, medical handovers procedures, and self-assessment of satisfaction for medical handover (numeric scale from 0 to 10).ResultsEleven general hospital centers, three private hospitals, five university hospitals were concerned by the survey. The mean time spent for medical handover was 59±35 min on monday morning, significantly longer than other days, evening, and to weekend handovers (P<0.001 for all comparisons). When reporting it to the number of ICU bed, the time spent for handover per patient was significantly shorter in private hospital compared to general and academic hospital (P<0.05 for all comparison).ConclusionTime spent for medical handover is important, with an approximate total time of 1h 30 min on monday, and 1h the other days. Physician in private hospitals spend less time for medical handovers. This fact should be considered for medical timework organization, especially in academic hospital and in hospital with large ICU.Copyright © 2012 Société française d’anesthésie et de réanimation (Sfar). Published by Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.

20 keywords...

hide…