Today’s complex healthcare system relies on handoffs and transitions to move patients and their personal medical information through a maze of providers and institutions. Literally thousands of hospital handoffs and transitions occur each day. Unfortunately, and all too often, healthcare handoffs are catalysts for communication errors that result in significant adverse events and patient harm. Medication information, in particular, is at risk of being miscommunicated or omitted at points of patient transition. In addition, one of the most pressing patient safety topics of our time is the need to reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions. With the advent of healthcare reform, institutions with elevated hospital readmission rates are being put at a financial disadvantage for reimbursement purposes.
In this activity, we outline communication and process related challenges associated with healthcare handoffs, transitions, and discharges, and provide strategies and techniques to help improve communication, decrease patient risk, and reduce liability, risk, and costs. After completing this activity, practitioners should be able to: use a standardized handoff technique (such as SBAR) to improve communication during handoffs/transitions; employ basic steps to reconcile medications across the continuum of a patient’s care; and plan a hospital discharge conversation that includes all of the pertinent information necessary to insure a safe departure from the hospital and successful follow-up, as well as confirmation of patient understanding of key directives.
Credit & MOC Details
Credit information is provided by the course provider. We recommend confirming credit eligibility with the provider or your licensing board before starting the activity.
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FDA REMS
Qualifies for MIPS
Specialties served/covered
- Addiction Medicine
- Cardiovascular Disease
- Clinical Informatics
- Clinician Wellness & Burnout
- Communication & Shared Decision-Making
- Critical Care Medicine
- Diagnostic Radiology
- Emergency Medicine
- Family Medicine
- General & Adult Psychiatry
- General Internal Medicine
- General Operative Anesthesia
- General Pediatrics
- General Surgery
- Geriatric Medicine
- Health Equity & Inclusion
- Hospital Medicine
- Infectious Disease
- Maternal-Fetal Medicine
- Medical Genetics & Genomics
- Medical Leadership & Administration
- Neurology
- Neurosurgery
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- Orthopaedic Surgery
- Orthopaedic Trauma
- Patient Safety & Quality Improvement
- Pediatric Emergency Medicine
- Pediatric Infectious Diseases
- Pediatric Urology
- Practice Management & Ethics
- Surgical Critical Care
- Trauma Surgery
- Urology
- Vascular Neurology
- Vascular Surgery
- Anesthesiology
- Cardio-Vascular
- Cross-Specialty
- Emergency & Critical Care
- Infectious Disease
- Internal Medicine
- Medical Subspecialties
- Neurology
- Ob/Gyn
- Orthopedics
- Pediatrics
- Primary care
- Psychiatry
- Radiology
- Surgery
- Urology
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- Case-based learning
- Credit · Up to 2 credits
- Fee · varies
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ReleasedNov 20, 2025
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Last day to claim creditNov 20, 2028 2 years left
