Transfer of Care in Perioperative Settings: A Descriptive Qualitative Study

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-2018

Department

Nursing

Abstract

Transfer of care is defined as the exchange of information and professional accountability for patient care between individuals. This article describes a qualitative content analysis (N = 19) using a closed-claims database generated by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) Foundation. The purpose of this study was to explore perioperative transfer-of-care events that contributed to professional malpractice claims to identify general themes, antecedents, and consequences to improve clinical practices and guide future research. A brief summary of the 6 themes that emerged in this study is as follows. (1) Patients should be transferred to an appropriate level of care based on their needs. (2) Production pressure leads to normalization of deviance. (3) Clinicians need to conduct their own patient assessments and health record reviews without relying solely on another clinician’s report. (4) Interdisciplinary team communication failure is a leading cause of adverse outcomes. (5) Inadequate patient monitoring and physical assessment after the transfer of care is completed is a leading cause of adverse outcomes. (6) Transfer of care should not occur during high-risk patient care events or during periods of patient hemodynamic or respiratory instability.

Publication Title

AANA Journal

Volume

86

Issue

5

First Page

401

Last Page

407

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