A handoff is not a telegram: an understanding of the patient is co-constructed

Hospital handoffs are believed to be a key locus of communication breakdown that can endanger patient safety and undermine quality of care. Substantial new efforts to better understand handoffs and to improve handoff practices are underway.

Many such efforts appear to be seriously hampered, however, by an underlying presumption that the essential function of a handoff is one-way information transmission. Here we examine social science literature that supports a richer framing of handoff conversations, one that characterizes them as co-constructions of an understanding of the patient.

Author: Michael D CohenBrian HilligossAndrÃ© Kajdacsy-Balla Amaral
Credits/Source: Critical Care 2011, 16:303

Published on: 2012-02-08

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