I-PASS Project Seeks Standardization of Patient Hand-Offs

A new patient safety and medical education initiative designed to standardize and improve patient hand-offs is being implemented and tested in 10 pediatric training programs.

The I-PASS initiative was originally developed by Boston Children's Hospital. I-PASS has several major elements bundled into a single intervention:

•    Team training for clinicians in communication and teamwork skills
•    An easy-to-remember mnemonic to ensure that key information is imparted in each handoff (I - Illness severity; P - Patient summary; A - Action list for the next team; S - Situation awareness and contingency plans; S - Synthesis and "read-back" of the information)

 


•    Creation of a printed hand-off document that can be integrated into the patient's electronic medical record
•    Direct, structured observation of hand-offs by senior physicians with feedback.

A pilot study at Boston Children's showed a 40 percent reduction in medical errors after implementation of the initiative. The initiative is now being rolled out to 10 pediatric healthcare settings.

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