961 ROSE's Proforma: A Tool to Improve Quality and Safety of Surgical Handover

Abstract

Abstract Aim Accurate and rigorous handover is paramount in surgery. Human factor can unfortunately affect handovers resulting unsafe for patients. The ROSE’S handover proforma is a structured methodology which has been created according to the RCSEng guidelines to facilitate communication ensuring an effective delivering of information concerning the care of surgical patients. Method ROSE is the acronym for REASON, OBSERVATION, SHIFT, ESCALATION and it is made of multiple subparts that cover the majority of the information that need to be shared between team members such as wound care, NEWS score, medications, diagnostic tests, assessments of lines (catheter, cannula, drain, CVC), social situation, deterioration, medical history as required by guidelines of RCSEng. The timing of 40 handovers has been recorded, of these 20 were performed by using the ROSE’s form. A questionnaire has been administered before and after the implementation of the Rose’s handover. Results The average time for handover a surgical patient increased from 1.07 to 3.26 minutes with ROSE’s form. The 82.14% of the staff who tried it thought that the form resulted easy to navigate, brief and complete in details. It is a safer practice for the 71.43% of the staff. The quality and the accuracy of the handover given was perceived as improved by the 96.46% of the staff that used it. Conclusions A structured surgical handover performed with a written form can be an easy and safe tool that can minimize human factor and technical errors especially out of hours. Clearly further research is needed; however, the preliminary results look encouraging.