Abstract
Handoff notes are increasingly integrated within electronic health record (EHR) systems and often contain data automatically generated from the EHR and free-text narratives. We examined the quality of data entered by providers in the free-text portion of our institutional EHR handoff tool. Overall, 65% of handoff notes contained at least one error (average 1.7 errors per note). Most errors were omissions in information around patient plan/management or assessment/diagnosis rather than entry of false data. Factors associated with increased error rate were increasing hospital day number; weekend note; medical (vs. surgical) service team; and authorship by a medical student, first or fourth year resident physician, or attending physician. Our findings suggest that errors are common in handoff notes, and while these errors are not completely false data, they may provide individuals caring for patients an inaccurate understanding of patient status.
Original language | English (US) |
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Title of host publication | MEDINFO 2017 |
Subtitle of host publication | Precision Healthcare through Informatics - Proceedings of the 16th World Congress on Medical and Health Informatics |
Editors | Adi V. Gundlapalli, Jaulent Marie-Christine, Zhao Dongsheng |
Publisher | IOS Press BV |
Pages | 999-1003 |
Number of pages | 5 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781614998297 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2017 |
Event | 16th World Congress of Medical and Health Informatics: Precision Healthcare through Informatics, MedInfo 2017 - Hangzhou, China Duration: Aug 21 2017 → Aug 25 2017 |
Publication series
Name | Studies in Health Technology and Informatics |
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Volume | 245 |
ISSN (Print) | 0926-9630 |
ISSN (Electronic) | 1879-8365 |
Other
Other | 16th World Congress of Medical and Health Informatics: Precision Healthcare through Informatics, MedInfo 2017 |
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Country/Territory | China |
City | Hangzhou |
Period | 8/21/17 → 8/25/17 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors would like to thank the University of Minnesota Department of Surgery, Fairview Health Services, and University of Minnesota Physicians/MHealth for their support of this work.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and IOS Press.
Keywords
- Electronic health records
- Patient handoff
- Patient transfer