Handover is a ubiquitous feature of health care. At least 7 million handovers occur annually within Australian hospitals. At times, its very existence is almost unnoticed — many health professionals do not think of a telephone referral as “handover” — and at other times it is seen as a mundane chore that has to be done in addition to the “real” work of clinical staff. There can be complacency with current practices and little recognition of the high-risk nature of handover.
The poor outcomes that arise from poor handover, as well as the scarcity of existing evidence, have motivated the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care to work on developing evidence-based solutions for improving handover. The articles in this supplement are contributed by teams participating in the Commission’s National Clinical Handover Initiative. Each provides a view into how handover can be improved. Handover should be viewed as part of the provision of safe patient care, rather than as extra, unnecessary work.
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