Enhancing a Structured Communication Between the Community Pregnancy Services and the Hospital Maternal Area: A Tool for the Handover Process in High - Risk Pregnancy Through an Ethnographic Study Conducted in the Toscana Centro Trust

Communication between health facilities is one of the fundamental elements for a proper management of women during pregnancy and delivery. Failures of the process, mainly due to an absence of a structured handover, are closely associated with adverse events and near misses. This research has two main aims: to assess the presence and characteristics of the handover process between a community pregnancy service and a hospital maternal area in high-risk pregnancy and to design and test a tool for a structured transfer of clinical information between these two settings. An ethnographic study was conducted through participated observations. From the observations, researchers have been able to define a minimum set of information critical for any referral and that need to be included in any handover between the sending and the receiving setting.