Clinical Handover

Page contents: Background | Current status | Results | Workshop | Clinical Handover Tools

Background

The Victorian Quality Council surveyed health services across Victoria about clinical handover process. Shift-to-shift handover and inter-hospital transfer were identified as two significant areas of concern. A set of standardised clinical handover tools was developed based on the outcome of a clinical handover workshop. A pilot project conducted in four health services trialled the tools for shift-to-shift medical handover and was completed in December 2007. The results are available below.

During 2006-2007, the VQC also funded the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) Junior Medical Staff (JMS) Handover project through the Victorian Travelling Scholarship program. A project to combine and summarise lessons learned from the two VQC funded CH projects has recently been completed. The findings can be accessed below.

Current status

The Clinical Handover project is complete and a paper is available from The Medical Journal of Australia website.

An inter-hospital patient transfer project has been initiated. For any queries regarding either of these two projects please contact Kate Morrissy, Senior Project Officer on (03) 9096 0473.

Results

Clinical Handover Information Sheet (49kb, pdf)

Clinical handover - Results arising from a clinical handover survey circulated to all Victorian public health services - July 2006 (99kb, pdf)

Evaluation of the effectiveness and acceptability of standardised clinical handover tools at four Victorian health services - May 2008 (330kb, pdf)

Clinical handover: The next steps - June 2008 (376kb, pdf)

Workshop

Presentations from workshop held on 29 November 2006.

Clinical Handover A Coroner’s Perspective Dr Adam O’Brien (790kb, pdf)

Nurses’ perspectives of the different types of handover - Professor Beverly O'Connell (357kb, pdf)

Clinical Handover Workshop - Assoc Professor Christine Kilpatrick (42kb, pdf)

Handovers, Victorian Quality Council - Professor David Watters (1.15mb, pdf)

Of hat-tricks and elephants... - Dr Garry Lane (983kb, pdf)

Medical Handover at Northeast Health Wangaratta - Mr Kevin Vaughan (316kb, pdf)

Group work summary (45kb, pdf)

Clinical Handover Tools

The following tools were piloted in four Victorian public health services.

Suggested CH organisational readiness checklist (29kb, pdf)
Designed to facilitate identification of gaps in clinical handover management at an organisational level.

Suggested CH template (28kb, pdf)
A list of the minimum areas to be communicated in any clinical handover situation.

Suggested content for CH policy (33kb, pdf)
Outlines the commitment of the organisation to clinical handover and the expectations of what will occur within the organisation.

Suggested content for CH protocol or guidelines (33kb, pdf)
Outlines the requirements for clinical handover at a local level.

Suggested Key Performance Indicators (30kb, pdf)
List of proposed KPIs, based on outcome, structure and processes related to clinical handover.

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