Transitions in Care: Signovers in the Emergency Department

Robert L. Wears, Shawna J. Perry, Eric M. Eisenberg, Lexa Murphy, Marc J. Shapiro, Christopher Beach, Pat Croskerry, Ravi S. Behara

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting · 2004 · 25 citations · 2 references

Concepts

Abstract

The need for 24-hour emergency care requires emergency department (ED) staff to work in shifts. We observed shift transitions in 5 EDs as part of a study on safety in emergency care. We found the observable characteristics of shift transitions to be highly variable across institutions and dynamically variable within shift change episodes. However, across all sites, turnovers were interactional rather than transactional, and were highly tailored to the immediate context. The high degree of situatedness in the turnovers suggest they are not likely to be adapted to a standardized tool or protocol.

References

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