Clinical Handover Program

Clinical Handover refers to 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.The purpose of this program is to identify, develop and improve clinical handover communication. Safe health care delivery for patients depends on effective communication between health care providers. Developing and implementing more consistent and reliable approaches to clinical handover is a key strategy to reduce communication errors. The Clinical Handover program looks at the improvement of handover communication across a range of settings of care - including public and private hospitals and primary and ambulatory care settings. The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care links to a number of guides, presentations and tool on the Clinical Handover site.