Health-care delivery involves clinical handover processes that occur at many levels of inpatient care. These processes are essential to an effective health-care system due to their role in achieving efficient communication, reducing transmission time, and lowering costs. Ensuring safe and effective handover requires the coordination of multiple care providers that work together to deliver patient care efficiently. Poor coordination during handover can have major effects on patient care, leading to loss of information and contributing to adverse events.
As health-care delivery evolves to become more patient-centered, handovers from short- to long-term care need to maintain a strong communication, which in turn will depend on the evolution of support systems for that communication.
Due to the wide range of care providers and patient needs, there has so far been a lack of research work on handover processes. This study aims to explore the clinical handover process for patients moving from a cardiology unit to home and community care settings, and how they are affected by varying degrees of communication. It relies on literature review and a case study conducted at Montfort Hospital, Ontario, to identify and analyze the major factors involved in this type of handover, and to form suggestions about how this process could be improved.
This thesis analyzes process scenarios arising in the case study, modeling them using business process management (BPM) tools and techniques to identify problems and formulate solutions. A model of the existing process is created and analyzed using business process management notation (BPMN), and is then subjected to analysis, the results of which identify several communication issues with a potential to cause delays and information loss.
The findings highlight the importance of collaboration among care providers, and indicate the potential uses of BPM methodology to choreograph that collaboration. The study ultimately shows how improvements to collaboration and information exchange can increase the communication effectiveness in handover processes and reduce the probability of adverse patient events.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/32740 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Alghamdi, Amal |
| Contributors | Ben Amor, Sarah |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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