The primary objective of a ‘handover’ is to provide accurate information about a patient’s care, treatment and services, current condition and any recent or anticipated changes (www.handover.eu, Watcher 2008). Interest in handovers has grown steadily over the past decade as researchers, hospital administrators, educators, and policy makers have learned that current handover processes are highly variable and potentially unreliable (Manser & Foster 2011). Thus, in 2007 effective communication during handover was listed one of the National Patient Safety Goals by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organisations (JCAHO 2007) and is today one of the five solution areas of the “High 5s initiative” established by WHO and the Commonwealth Fund (www.high5s.org). Transitions in patient care due to a handover by the care provider/team to another provider/team can have detrimental effects on the quality and safety of patient care. During the past several years, we have seen transitions in care become more frequent, resulting in increased opportunities for errors that may result in patient harm (Cheah 2005, Arora & Johnsen 2006, Sharit et al 2005, LaMantia et al 2010).
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