The Earlier the Longer: How Disproportionate Time is Spent on Patients Discussed Early in Attending Physicians’ End-of-week Handoffs

Authors

Lyndon Garrett, Brigham Young University
Dr. Curtis LeBaron, Brigham Young University

Keywords

disproportionate time, hospital handoffs, patient safety, quality of care

College

Marriott School of Management

Department

Strategic Management

Abstract

Hospital handoffs have been recognized by both regulators and researchers as a locus of potential communication failure with risks to patient safety and quality of care. The initial objectives of my orca grant research were to explore the roles of both the incoming and outgoing physicians in the successful accomplishment of a shift-change patient handoff. As we got into our study, we realized an important oversight in the literature. While most empirical studies on shift-change have been done in settings where multiple patients are transferred, theoretical discussions in the literature have focused on how best to hand off a single patient. As a result, research has overlooked what has been called the portfolio problem, how best to allocate available discussion time across multiple patients.

Recommended Citation

Garrett, Lyndon and LeBaron, Dr. Curtis (2014) "The Earlier the Longer: How Disproportionate Time is Spent on Patients Discussed Early in Attending Physicians’ End-of-week Handoffs," Journal of Undergraduate Research: Vol. 2014: Iss. 1, Article 1020.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jur/vol2014/iss1/1020