Five Factors that Influence Postoperative Handoff Quality

​Postoperative handoffs are a complex and variable process that are affected by factors related to both internal and external characteristics, according to a September 5, 2018, study in the Journal of Clinical Nursing. The authors identified five factors that influence postoperative handoffs. Three factors were internal (patient conditions; individual characteristics of the clinicians involved; and team composition) and two were external (handover structure; timing and concurrency conflicts). To arrive at this conclusion, the authors conducted 8 focus-group interviews with 37 doctors and nurses who worked in 4 surgical departments of a university hospital in Norway. The experience of responses were further identified by how experienced they were. The patient's condition was identified as one of the most important of the five factors.