Clinical handover

[1] When critical clinical information emerges or there is a risk to patient care, timely communication of this information to the appropriate person(s) is essential to ensuring patient safety and delivery of the right care.

Failure in handover is a major source in preventable patient harm.

Clinical handover is an international concern and Australia, the United Kingdom and other countries have developed risk reduction recommendations.

[1] It is important to define and agree on the minimum information content for clinical handovers relevant to a service or discipline.

It may be helpful to consider what clinical and non-clinical information is time critical or significant to patient care, such as:[2] Use of structured handover tools can help to provide a framework for communicating the minimum information content for clinical handovers.