The Impact of Intraoperative Anesthesiology Provider Handovers on Postoperative Complications After Hepatopancreatobiliary (HPB) Surgery

The objective of this study is to assess the possible association between intraoperative anesthesia team handovers and increased 90-day major complications following HPB surgery. This is a single-center retrospective cohort study of patients who underwent HPB surgery. Anesthesiologist handover (AH) occurred when a complete transfer of care to a receiving anesthesiologist. total anesthesia team handovers (TH) occurred when both anesthesiologist and supervised provider transferred care. The primary outcome was 90-day major complications, defined as an ACCORDION score of ≥ 3. Ninety-day major complications occurred in 35 (21.6%) of TH and 96 (21.9%) of AH patients. With adjustment of other covariates, no significant association was found between AH (OR, 1.358, 95% CI, 0.935-1.973, p = 0.1079) or TH (OR, 1.157, 95% CI, 0.706-1.894, p = 0.5633) and 90-day major complications. In a high-volume HPB center, anesthesia team handovers were not associated with an increased risk of patients having a major complication within 90 days after HPB surgery.