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 on a temporary or permanent basis. (Australian Medical Association 2006 – Safe Handover Safe Patients)

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

The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) is leading national and international efforts to improve clinical handover.

The ACSQHC national clinical handover initiative successfully engaged a number of organisations to develop clinical handover solutions including the successful Western Australian iSoBAR Project. The iSoBAR project was instrumental in the ACSQHC’s development of the OSSIE Guide to clinical handover (new window).

OSSIE Guide to clinical handover

• Developed as part of the ACSQHC national clinical handover initiative.
• Promotes a change management framework to support clinicians wanting to improve clinical handover.
• An improvement guide in a series of 5 manageable steps:
  • O = Organisational leadership
  • S = Simple solution development
  • S = Stakeholder engagement
  • I = Implementation
  • E = Evaluation and maintenance
• Provides a standardised process and content data set.
• Applicable to medical, nursing shift to shift handover process.