A collaborative effort between the Joint Commission and 10 hospital and health systems has resulted in improved patient handoffs and better communication among providers, according to a statement from the Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.-based accreditation organization.
This is the second project for the Center for Transforming Healthcare, a quality-improvement and safety arm the Joint Commission established in 2009. Using robust improvement tools, the center worked with participating hospitals to identify breakdowns and barriers to successful handoffs—such as interruptions or insufficient patient information—and helped them to develop tailored solutions to fix them.
“These 10 organizations are leading the way in finding specific solutions to the complex problem of handoff communications failures,” Mark Chassin, the Joint Commission's president, said in a news release.
When the handoff project began in August 2009, participating hospitals reported that about 37% of handoffs were defective and unsafe. After making changes, they saw a 52% reduction in defective handoffs, the Joint Commission said in the release.
After pilot testing, the handoff solutions should be available to all Joint Commission-accredited healthcare organizations in the second half of 2011.
