SINNHAFT—mnemonic for standardized handover in the central emergency department

Abstract

In general, there is only one opportunity for handover in medicine and thus for the transfer of relevant treatment and patient information. The handover, at the interface to the emergency department (ED), must therefore be given extraordinary importance. From a legal point of view, in the sense of the transfer of responsibility, the handover not only completes preclinical care, but it ensures the transfer of important information in order to guarantee the best possible clinical care. Based on the consensus paper from 2020, with a total of 15 recommendations for the structured handover process in the ED, a Delphi process with 52 participants was initiated, which was based on the regulations of the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies e. V. (AWMF). In March 2023, the results of the two voting rounds were published and, thus, provide an evidence-based basis for defining the fixed contents of a mnemonic. After taking into account all results of the Delphi process, a mnemonic with the acronym “SINNHAFT” was derived. Thus, SINNHAFT 1.0 is a scientifically derived mnemonic, which for the first time defines concrete handover contents in an elaborate process, integrating crew resource management (CRM) aspects, and at the same time represents the basis for a standardized handover at the interface between emergency medical services and EDs in Germany.