Development of a recovery-room discharge checklist (SAMPE checklist) for safe handover and its comparison with Aldrete and White scoring systems

BACKGROUND: The postoperative care transition from the postanesthetic recovery room (PACU) to the common ward or even home discharge represents a critical step of the surgical patients’ handover. Although some systems have been proposed to measure the ability to discharge after an anesthetic-surgical procedure effectively, there is no consensus defining which variables should necessarily be evaluated by these instruments. The instruments routinely used do not evaluate important domains for discharge and are laborious to fill, which compromises the professionals’ adhesion. The objectives are to describe the creation of a new recovery room discharge tool (SAMPE checklist) and determine the degree of agreement of the new tool with two classical scales. METHODS: In a cross-sectional observational study, 997 patients were selected from the general population undergoing a wide range of surgical procedures in a quaternary care hospital. At 90 minutes after leaving the operating room (OR), patients were evaluated and information was collected to fill out the new SAMPE checklist and two other scores (Aldrete and White) to examine the degree of agreement between them. RESULTS: SAMPE checklist has presented a satisfactory agreement with the White score and lower agreement with Aldrete modified score. CONCLUSION: This new instrument, as demonstrated in this study with nearly 1000 patients from different contexts, is easy to apply, has high adhesion potential, and can be considered a new option to formalize the discharge from the recovery room.