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James G. Bittner IV, MD

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

I commend Horwitz and colleagues¹ for their recent work titled "Consequences of Inadequate Sign-out for Patient Care," published in the September 8, 2008, issue. The authors completed a prospective study of 88 patient sign-outs conducted by 8 internal medicine interns and residents over 12 days, emphasizing inadequacies that may affect resident delivery of patient care. This study attempted to illuminate a topic of importance to medical educators but left unanswered several questions.

Internal medicine interns and residents rotating on general medical units at a single hospital provided self-reported data of each sign-out session. Investigators then conducted interviews in a semistructured fashion.¹ The authors chose not to include service-specific data, which makes interpretation difficult because general medical units may differ significantly in their patient population and care needs. Patient sign-outs likely become more complex, with greater chance for error, when medical services become increasingly busy or . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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