Effective communication in clinical handover

About the project

This project focused on clinician-to-clinician communication in clinical handover in five hospitals across Australia. In collaboration with partner organisations and clinicians, the team translated comprehensive descriptive frameworks into innovative evidence-based interventions and policy recommendations.

The policy recommendations and handover model we developed for effective clinical handover communication have informed the new standard on Communicating for Patient Safety, developed by the Australian Commission for the Safety and Quality in Healthcare.

During this project we developed and delivered training to 340 nurses across the Canberra Hospital. The post-training evaluations demonstrated significant changes in practice. The success of this intervention resulted in further funding for other projects in Australia and Hong Kong.

This was a three-year Australian Research Council Linkage grant with funding from the ARC and the Linkage partners.

Project team

Diana Slade (Lead CI)
Lesley Farrell
Elizabeth Trickett
John Walsh
Jon Juriedini
Malcolm Battersby
Christy Pirone
Dorothy Jones
Phillip Della
Ted Stewart-Wynne
James Dunne
Elizabeth Manias
Bernadette Watson
Jacqui Bear

Publications

Eggins, S, Slade, D and Geddes, F (eds) (2016). Effective Communication in Clinical Handover – from Research to Practice. De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin; (PASA, Patient Safety 16).
Pun, J, Chan, EA, Man, M, Eggins, S, Slade, D (2019). Pre- and post-evaluations of the effects of the Connect, Ask, Respond and Empathise (CARE) protocol on nursing handover: A case study of a bilingual hospital in Hong Kong. Journal of Clinical Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.1487
Slade D, Murray KA, Pun JKH, Eggins S (2018). Nurses’ perceptions of mandatory bedside clinical handovers: An Australian hospital study. Journal of Nursing Management. 00:1–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.12661
Slade, D, Pun, J, Murray, KA, & Eggins, S (2018). Benefits of health care communication training for nurses conducting bedside handovers: An Australian hospital case study. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 49(7), 329-336. https://doi.org/10.3928/00220124-20180613-09
Eggins, S and Slade, D (2016). Contrasting Verbal Styles and Barriers to Patient Participation in Bedside Nursing Handovers. Communication and Medicine, 13.1 (special volume on Team Talk).
Pun, JKH, Matthiessen, C, Murray, K, Slade, D (2015). Factors affecting communication in emergency departments: doctors and nurses perceptions of communication in a trilingual ED in Hong Kong. International Journal of Emergency Medicine. 8:48 DOI 10.1186/s12245-015-0095-y http://www.intjem.com/content/8/1/48
Eggins, S and Slade, D (2015). Communication in clinical handover: improving the safety and quality of the patient experience. Journal of Public Health Research, Vol 4.666.
Rider, EA, Kurtz, S, Slade, D, Esterbrook Longmaid III, HE, Ming-Jung, Ho, Pun Kwok Hung, J, Eggins S, Branch, WT (2014). The International Charter for Human Values in Healthcare: An interprofessional global collaboration to enhance values and communication in healthcare. Patient Education and Counselling. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ j.pec.2014.06.017
Eggins, S & Slade, D (2012). Clinical handover as an interactive event: informational and interactional communication strategies in effective shift-change handovers. Communication and Medicine Volume. 9(3), pp. 215–227.