SA Health Accreditation
The National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards drive the implementation of safety & quality systems & improve the quality of health care in Australia.
Communicating for safety
The NSQHS Standard 6: Communicating for Safety aims to ensure timely, purpose-driven and effective communication and documentation that support continuous, coordinated and safe care for patients.
SA Health resources
The SA Health Clinical Communication and Patient Identification Clinical Directive (PDF 475KB) incorporates the former Clinical Handover and Patient Identification policies and guidelines.
The Clinical Communication and Patient Identification toolkit comprises the following tools:
- Tool 1: Clinical communication and teamwork (PDF 255KB)
- Tool 2: Using My Health Record in clinical communication (PDF 200K)
- Tool 3: Patient identification and matching to intended care (PDF 234KB).
National Safety and Quality Service Standard 6: Communicating for Safety
This standard recognises that effective communication is needed throughout patients’ care and identifies high-risk times when effective communication is critical. It describes the systems and processes to support effective communication at all transitions of care: when critical information emerges or changes; to ensure correct patient identification and procedure matching; and to ensure essential information is documented in the patient’s healthcare record.
NSQHS Standard 6 includes the following criteria:
- Clinical governance and quality improvement to support effective communication
- Correct identification and procedure matching
- Communication at clinical handover
- Communication with consumers, shared decision-making and health literacy
- Communication of critical information
- Documentation of information.
Contact information
Clinical Governance Unit
Email:
Health.DHWClinicalGovernanceEnquiries@sa.gov.au