PDF printable version of Unique initiative to improve clinical handover and patient safety (PDF 32 KB)
30 August 2007
The seven successful tenderers for the National Clinical Handover Initiative, which aims to enhance patient safety through the development of improved clinical handover communications, will gather together for the first time today in Sydney.
The Initiative was identified at the Australian Health Ministers’ Conference in November last year as one of the nine key priority programs for which the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care has responsibility.
Professor Chris Baggoley, Acting Chief Executive of the Commission, said: “Handover is crucial to maintaining patient safety. Transitions in care, whether a patient is being moved from one part of the hospital or another, or due to staff shift changes, introduce risks of communication failure.”
“As evidenced in the recently published Sentinel Events Report, clinical handover is an area where health services can do better. This unique initiative will produce significant, sustained and measurable reductions in communication gaps during these handovers, wherever they occur.”
Initial applicants to receive funding through this initiative are located in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. Their projects are diverse and include:
- a strategy in Victoria to assist GPs in making sure all important information goes with aged care residents when they require hospital admission;
- a collaboration with the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Western Australia on communication about deteriorating patients in remote areas and
- a project in Queensland on the spread of bedside nursing handover (an initiative that has proven to be a favourite with patients).
Further details about the successful tenderers are attached as a fact sheet.
To develop these transferable and sustainable handover protocols most teams involve university-clinician partnerships. The evidence base will be built as improvements in the safety of handover are made, and on-line teaching material and manuals will be produced.
“The Commission is committed to developing solutions that really work, endure and function in multiple different workplaces.” Professor Baggoley said.
The delivery of standardised solutions will be Australia’s contribution to the World Health Organization (WHO) Patient Safety Alliance High Fives Initiative.
These projects represent stage one of the National Clinical Handover Initiative. Following stage one, another funding round will be developed using the tools developed and lessons learned through the first round.
Contact:
Professor Chris Baggoley
Acting Chief Executive
Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care
02 9263 3633
National Clinical Handover Initiative projects funded include:
Royal Perth Hospital, Western Australia – Introducing protocols to ensure safe written and verbal clinical handover arrangements for patients from country health services to tertiary referral centres when emergency care is required.
Griffith University, Queensland – Analysing bedside nursing handover to improve the types and accuracy of information communicated during nursing shift to shift handover.
University of Queensland - Developing online education modules for use by different clinical groups to roll out and support further development of clinical handover solutions (including bedside nursing handover and the use of whiteboards).
North East Valley Division of General Practice Pty Ltd, Melbourne – A strategy in Victoria to make sure all important information goes with aged care residents when they are transferred to hospital’
Department of Health and Human Services, Tasmania - Developing and testing standardised operating protocols for medical and nursing clinical handover in general medical, general surgical and emergency departments.
University of Technology Sydney & University of Melbourne - Developing tools for clinical staff to use for the ongoing observation, monitoring and evaluation of handover; tools include observation techniques, video and simulation.
SA Department of Health - Developing, implementing and evaluating the TeamSTEPPS teamwork Training System in targeted handover points to ensure accurate communication about patients occurs.
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