In Practice: Doctors could learn something about medical handoffs from the Navy
Saturday, April 16, 2011 - 19:30
in Health & Medicine
Mistakes commonly occur when a doctor goes off duty and transfers responsibility of a patient to another doctor. Handoffs are being studied and revamped to ensure continuity and consistency of communication and care.Consider the following story, from a doctor during his training: During a night on call, a patient he was "cross covering" — caring for during the night shift — went into cardiac and respiratory arrest. Dutifully, the resident and his team began to resuscitate the patient.