SBAR: A Shared Mental Model for Improving Communication Between Clinicians.

Haig, K. M., Sutton, S., & Whittington, J. (2006). SBAR: A Shared Mental Model for Improving Communication Between Clinicians. Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 32(3), 167-175.

Type

Journal article

Intellectual base

Primary research

Year

2006

Volume

32

Issue

3

Pages

167-175

ISSN

1553-7250

DOI

10.1016/s1553-7250(06)32022-3

DOI registrant

Elsevier

Link

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1553-7250(06)32022-3

Cited by

8 citations across 8 artifacts.

Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.

Mechanisms

• Context Handoff Header
  • A Context Handoff Header structured on SBAR rebuilds the receiver's context in a fixed shape

    This sourceReports SBAR as a fixed Situation–Background–Assessment–Recommendation structure for building a shared clinical communication model.

• Handoff Contract Template
  • The unit adopts a handoff contract modelled on SBAR

    This sourcePresents SBAR as the standardized Situation–Background–Assessment–Recommendation structure for clinical handoffs.

• Handoff Note Template
  • The guarding discipline is periodic receiver-driven revision (does each field still earn its place?) plus at least one open narrative slot for the judgment the schema cannot pre-name — the design logic behind structured tools like SBAR, whose fields were chosen precisely because they were the ones being dropped.

    This sourcePresents SBAR as a structured Situation–Background–Assessment–Recommendation model for clinician communication.

• Handoff Target Trace
  • Structured handoff tools such as SBAR exist precisely because unstructured verbal handoffs lose the target and its context.

    This sourcePresents SBAR as a structured Situation–Background–Assessment–Recommendation method for clinician communication.

• Message Template or Structured Form
  • Its strength is preventing omission-by-forgetting

    This sourcePresents SBAR as a structured communication intervention motivated by dangerous omissions, including a case in which a distracted clinician failed to record a critical result.

• Shared Operating Framework
  • A canonical instance is the SBAR hand-off — a fixed structure for passing Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendation — which makes a clinical transfer legible no matter who is on either end.

    This sourcePresents SBAR as a standardized Situation–Background–Assessment–Recommendation structure for clearer, more organized communication and handoffs between clinicians.

• Shift Handoff Check
  • The structured version runs a format: for each patient the outgoing nurse states the Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendation, flagging that the post-op patient in room 4 has pain that is not yet controlled and a medication due at midnight.

    This sourceImplements SBAR as a standardized structure for clinical reporting.

• Template
  • … to keep every slot earning its place against the output's real content: prune fields no one reads, make genuinely-optional slots deletable, and treat a template that people fill with boilerplate as evidence its slots have drifted from the task — the same structured-communication tools that succeed, like clinical SBAR

    This sourcePresents clinical SBAR as a successful structured communication tool for improving clinician handoffs.

Verification

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