Handover: Improving the Continuity of patientcare Through Identification and implementation of Novel patient handoff processes in Europe

Research has shown that every year 30.000 European patients suffer preventable harm during treatment. Figures indicate that handover problems is one of the main causes for accidents in clients’ treatments and therefore a top priority in the health agenda’s of the European Commission and the World Health Organisation.

The Handover project aims at deepening and broadening our understanding of handover issues in order to develop approaches to reduce the number of handover accidents. Handover accidents are mainly caused by the lack of information and communication between various medical professionals who treat the same client or patient. For example, in several countries there exists no culture of communication between general practitioners and medical specialists working in hospitals.

The work of Celstec in this project concerns the design of training and workplace support for medical professionals. After thorough analyses of leaning needs and work setting constraints a first initial learning program will be developed. This will be tested as part of a larger intervention in several medical institutes and then finalized in order to encourage large-scale use of this program.