• Amanda M Johner, Shaila Merchant, Nava Aslani, Anneke Planting, Chad G Ball, Sandy Widder, Giuseppe Pagliarello, Neil G Parry, Dennis Klassen, S Morad Hameed, and Canadian Association of General Surgery Committee on Acute Surgery and Critical Care.
• Department of Surgery, University of British Columbia, 3669 Commercial St., Vancouver BC V5N 4G1, Canada. amanda.johner@gmail.com
• Can J Surg. 2013 Jun 1;56(3):E24-8.

BackgroundToday's acute care surgery (ACS) service model requires multiple handovers to incoming attending surgeons and residents. Our objectives were to investigate current handover practices in Canadian hospitals that have an ACS service and assess the quality of handover practices in place.MethodsWe administered an electronic survey among ACS residents in 6 Canadian general surgery programs.ResultsResident handover of patient care occurs frequently and often not under ideal circumstances. Most residents spend less than 5 minutes preparing handovers. Clinical uncertainty owing to inadequate handover is most likely to occur during overnight and weekend coverage. Almost one-third of surveyed residents rate the overall quality of the handovers they received as poor.ConclusionHandover skills must be taught in a systematic fashion. Improved resident communication will likely decrease loss of patient information and therefore improve ACS patient safety.

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