POSTOPERATIVE INFORMATION-TRANSFER - A STUDY COMPARING 2 UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS

Several studies have addressed the processing of anesthetic informatio n by paper anesthetic data records or by the electronic storage and tr ansfer of anesthetic data. Our purpose was to analyze the oral transfe r of information in the postoperative period. We investigated 198 post -operative transfer situations with 120 patients in a U.S. hospital to compare the results with those of a former study in a German hospital . A great number of parameters were used in both hospitals, but there were remarkable differences. In the U.S. hospital numeric values of cu rrent vital functions, including oxygen saturation, were more common d uring information transfer, whereas in the German hospital the emphasi s was on case history and chronic health status. The data from the U.S . hospital and those of the German hospital show that in spite of comp lete anesthetic records, a short (112.3 +/- 104 sec in the U.S. and 94 .1 +/- 83.6 sec in Germany) oral information transfer is inevitable wh en the patient is transferred from the OR to the recovery room, and fr om the recovery room to the ward (122.7 +/- 61.4 sec in the U.S. and 8 8.0 +/- 73.0 in Germany). Software developpers of patient data managem ent systems could learn from this study that in some situations it is necessary and possible to create a small set of data which will reflec t the patients status quite well.