Improving interprofessional handover on labor and delivery: A needs assessment study

ABSTRACT

Handover is the transfer of important clinical information between health providers. The current report describes a needs assessment of interprofessional labor and delivery handover at an urban hospital in Canada. The goal of this study was to explore the perceptions of the current handover meeting and opportunities for improvement. Using a constructivist paradigm, we conducted 28 semi-structured inter- views with handover participants. We used a recruitment grid to ensure we included the voices of participants representing each profession involved in interprofessional handover meetings. An inductive process was used to code the interview transcripts and theme the data. Major themes identified were: (1) Interprofessional handover contributes positively to team situational awareness, interprofessional relationships, and team communication; (2) Handover could be better if it had a more defined process; (3) Interprofessional handover can lead to feelings of intimidation; and (4) Interprofessional handovers on the labor and delivery unit in our setting need increased inclusivity of midwives. From these themes, continued development of interprofessional handover meetings on labor and delivery should be aimed at a formal definition of the scope and process for these meetings reducing feelings of intimidation, increased integration of Midwifery providers, and continued improvement of relationships between different professions and practitioners on labor and delivery.

KEYWORDS:

• Interprofessional handover
• situational awareness
• interprofessional communication
• obstetrics
• midwifery
• nursing

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Notes on contributors

Wynne I. Leung

Wynne I. Leung obtained her MD from the University of Alberta and completed residency at the University of Calgary. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary and a Practicing Obstetrician Gynecologist at the Rockyview Hospital. She is currently the Site Leader for Obstetrics and Gynecology at Rockyview. She is involved in the Alberta Connect Care project as the Women’s Health Provincial Physician Training lead. She has a strong professional, clinical and research interest in quality improvement and has recently completed her Masters of Science in Heath Quality at Queens University.  She has received teaching awards from the Cummings School of Medicine, University of Calgary Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency and the Rockyview Hospital.

Crystal Emery

Crystal Emery is a Registered Nurse with expertise in integrating clinical expertise with clinical informatics, 18 years of clinical nursing experience in Emergency, Cardiac Critical Care, and Rural settings and  a clinical lead for quality improvement projects in the Emergency department. Current work is focused on facilitating best patient care using the Alberta provincial clinical informatics system to support clinical practice. She recently completed her Masters of Science in Health Quality at Queens University.

Rylan Egan

Rylan Egan has a background in Educational Psychology, and experience developing innovative approaches to quality improvement research in the health sciences. Graduating from Queen’s University with a Masters of Curriculum Science, and a Doctorate from Simon Fraser University he has expertise in qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research. Rylan’s work and interest in healthcare quality began with the co-development of a Provincial Quality Improvement curriculum, since this time he has worked locally, nationally, and internationally on healthcare quality initiatives. He has co-taught research methods with our Queens Masters of Science in Healthcare Quality Program since 2013. He commenced his new position as tenure track Assistant Professor with Health Quality Programs at Queens University on July 1, 2018.