Anesthesiology Patient Handoff Education Interventions: A Systematic Review

Background: Anesthesiology provider handoffs are complex, occur frequently, and have been associated with adverse patient outcomes. The authors sought to determine the degree to which anesthesiology handoff studies with educational interventions incorporated tenets of educational best practices.

Methods: The research team conducted a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature focused on handoff studies with education interventions that included anesthesiology providers. Searches were conducted using PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane, and ERIC (2010-September 2021). Each phase of the article review process included at least two trained independent reviewers. In addition, pairs of trained reviewers abstracted study characteristics RESULTS: Twenty-six articles met inclusion criteria. Two thirds (18/26; 69.2%) were published after 2017, and almost three fourths (19/26; 73.1%) included learners. Education intervention descriptions varied, with only 15.4% (4/26) briefly mentioning education theory, 7.7% (2/26) with clear education objectives, and 7.7% (2/26) assessing curriculum via participant satisfaction. Most (22/26; 84.6%) assessed Kirkpatrick's level 3 (handoff behavior change), and 26.9% (7/26) assessed level 4b (patient outcomes). Medical education quality scores were low (range 6-24, mean 11.3; max 32), with more than half (15/26; 57.7%) receiving scores ≤ 10.

Conclusion: Educational interventions demonstrate marked heterogeneity in the use of educational theoretical concepts and established curriculum development best practices. Future studies should report on important aspects of educational interventions, which would allow for comparison across studies, yield the essential data needed to identify handoff education best practices, and improve patient safety.