Improvement in communication during patient handoff between areas from a children's hospital.

Introduction: Patient handoff is an interactive process including data communication and responsible transfer in order to safely maintain the continuity of care. Failure in this process may result in inadequate care and favor the occurrence of errors.

Objective: To implement a standardized instrument for patient handoff from the intensive care unit (ICU) to the intermediate-medium care unit (IMCU), and compare communication between health care providers before and after the intervention.

[Patient safety and the international goals: Consensus document].

Patient safety is one of the dimensions of care. Medical advances have made assistance processes more and more complex, and there is usually a combination of circumstances that converge for errors to occur. Adverse events constitute a serious public health problem, causing damages of varying degrees to the patient and his family, which also leads to an increase in the cost of the care process and hospital stay.