Table 1.

Characteristics of Studies Included in Review

	Author	Study Design	Intervention	Setting and Study Population	Target	Outcomes
Nursing	Kelly, 200542	Pre-post	Change to walk-round handover (at bedside) from baseline (control)	12-bed rehab unit with 18 nurses and 10 patients	Staff, patient	11/18 nurses felt more or much more informed & involved, 8/10 patients felt more involved
	Pothier, 200543	Controlled simulation	Compared pure verbal to verbal with “note-taking” to verbal plus typed content	Handover of 12 simulated patients over 5 cycles	System (data loss)	Minimal data loss with typed content, compared to 31% data retained with note-taking and no data retained with verbal only
	Wallum, 199544	Pre-post	Change from oral handover (baseline) to written template read with exchange	20 nurses in a geriatric dementia ward	Staff	83% of nurses felt care plans followed better, 88% knew care plans better
Technology or Structured Template	Cheah, 200545	Pre-post	Electronic template with free-text entry compared to baseline	14 UK Surgery residents	Staff	100% (14) of residents rated electronic system as desirable, but 7 (50%) reported that information not updated
	Lee, 199646	Pre-post	Standardized sign-out card for interns to transmit information during handoffs compared to handwritten (baseline)	Inpatient cardiology service at IM residency program in Minnesota with 19 new interns over a 3 month period	Staff	Intervention interns (n=10) reported poor sign-out less often than controls (n=9) [intervention 8 nights (5.8%) vs. control 17 nights (14.9%); p = 0.016]
	Kannry, 199947	Pre-post	Compared web-based sign-out program to usual system (baseline)	An academic teaching hospital in New York (34 patients admitted in 1997; 40 patients admitted in 1998)	System	Improved provider identification (86% web sign-out vs. 57% hospital census)
	Petersen, 199848	Pre-post	4 months of computerized signouts compared to baseline period (control)	3,747 patients admitted to the medical service at an academic teaching hospital	Patient	Preventable adverse events (ADE) decreased (1.7% to 1.2%, p< 0.10); risk of cross-cover physician for ADE eliminated
	Ram, 199349	Pre-post	Compared handwritten (baseline) to computer-generated	Family medicine residents at 2 academic teaching hospitals [Buffalo (n=16) and Pittsburgh (n=16)]	Staff	Higher satisfaction after electronic sign-out, but complaints with burden of data entry and need to keep information updated
	Van Eaton, 200450	Pre-post	Use of UW Cores-links sign-out to list for rounds & IS data	28 surgical and medical residents at 2 teaching hospitals	System	At 6 months, 66% of patients entered in system (adoption)
	Van Eaton, 200551	Prospective, randomized, crossover study.	Compared UW Cores* integrated system compared to usual system	Fourteen inpatient resident teams (6 surgery, 8 IM) at 2 teaching hospitals for 5-months	Staff, system	50% reduction in the perceived time spent copying data from [24% to 12% (p < 0.0001)] and number of patients missed on rounds (2.5 vs. 5 patients/team/month, p = 0.0001); improved sign-out quality (69.6% agree or strongly agree); and improved continuity of care (66.1% agree or strongly agree)