Clinical handover

Clinical Handover is the "transfer of professional responsibility and accountability for some or all aspects of care for a patient or group of patients, to another person or professional group in a temporary or permanent basis” ¹

Health care usually involves multiple health professionals over a variety of settings. A patient’s care journey may begin with their general practitioner and follow on to a medical specialist, hospital, and then home. At each transition of care, clinical handover should occur.

The Australian Commission for Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) has taken a national and international lead in clinical handover improvement and provides key resources such as The OSSIE Guide to Clinical Handover Improvement to support this work.

The SA Health Clinical Handover Policy (PDF 149KB) and Guideline (PDF 143KB) sets the standard for clinical handover practice in SA Health. The policy requires the use of a standard mnemonic, ISBAR, to support safe practice of clinical handover.

iPhone/iPad ISBAR application

South Australia Health and New South Wales Health have collaborated to develop the ISBAR iPhone/iPad application. The app is designed to provide clinical handover prompts for a variety of clinical handovers and allows free form input to enable clinicians to develop individual handover prompts for other specialties. No patient information is stored in the app, rather it provides a guide to help ensure that essential information is not missed, supporting continuity of care and error prevention. 

Contact

Christy Pirone

Principal Consultant

Telephone: (08) 8226 6304

¹ Australian Medical Association, 2006, Safe Handover:Safe Patients, Guidance for Clinical Handover for Clinicians and Managers (adapted from the British Medical Association’s resource: Safe Handover:Safe Patients)