Emergency Room Safer Transfer of Patients (ER-STOP): a quality improvement initiative at a community-based hospital to improve the safety of emergency room patient handovers

ObjectivesEnsure early identification and timely management of patient deterioration as essential components of safe effective healthcare. Prompted by analyses of incident reports and deterioration events, a multicomponent organisational rescue from danger system was redesigned to decrease unexpected inpatient deterioration.DesignQuality improvement before–after unblinded trial.Setting430-bed Canadian community teaching hospital.ParticipantsAll admitted adult medical–surgical patients in a before–after 12-month interventional study.InterventionLocally validated checklist (Modified Early Warning Score+urinary catheter in situ+nurse concern) with an intentional pause and explicit management options was deployed as a modification of an existing ward transfer of accountability fax report in the emergency department (ED).ResultsFollowing deployment of Emergency Room Safer Transfer of Patients (ER-STOP), the risk of an unexpected CCRT (critical care response team) response within 24 hours of admission from ED to adult medical and surgical wards was significantly decreased (OR 4.1, 95% CI 2.17 to 7.77). Mean (±SD) ED wait times (5.66±1.54vs 5.74±1.04 hours, p=0.30), intensive care unit admission rate (3.84%, n=233vs 4.61%, n=278, p=0.06) and cardiac care unit admission rate (9.51%, n=577vs 9.60%, n=579, p=0.198) were unchanged.ConclusionsER-STOP improvement was out of proportion to the predictive value of the checklist component suggesting that effectiveness of this low-cost sustainable tool was related to increased situational awareness, empowering a culture of patient safety and repurposing of an adjacent ED medical short-stay unit use. Local adaptation within existing processes is essential to successful safety outcomes.