Controlled trial to improve resident sign-out in a medical intensive care unit

摘要

Objective Poor sign-out or handover of care may lead to preventable patient harm. Critically ill patients in intensive care units (ICU) are complex and prone to rapid clinical deterioration. If clinical deterioration occurs, timeliness of appropriate interventions is essential to prevent or reduce adverse outcomes. Therefore sign-outs need to efficiently transmit key information and provide anticipatory guidance. Interventions to improve residentto-resident ICU sign-outs have not been well described. We conducted a controlled trial to test the effectiveness of a standardised ICU sign-out process to the usual ICU sign-out.