Lessons · Medicine foundations · SBAR, and the handover
SBAR: a handover in four letters
Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation: four headings that put a spoken handover in an order the listener is expecting.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
The first phone call you make about a person is where the shape helps most, because you will be nervous and they will be busy. Four headings mean you cannot forget to say who you are calling about, and they mean the listener knows when the ask is coming.
How to think about it
Write the four headings on paper before you dial and put one line under each. Say who you are first. Keep Situation to one sentence. Keep Recommendation concrete, with what you are asking for and by when, and read back what was agreed.
Worked example
Say who you are, your role, and where you are calling fromBefore the four letters. The listener needs to know who is speaking.
S, Situation: who the person is and why you are calling, in one sentenceOne sentence. This is the hardest discipline of the four.
B, Background: the relevant history and what has happened so farRelevant, meaning relevant to the call, not the whole record.
A, Assessment: the observations you have measured, and how they have changedNumbers with units and times, and the direction they moved in.
R, Recommendation: what you are asking for, and by whenAn ask, not a hint. A time makes it an ask.
Read back what was agreed and record the callSo both people leave the call with the same sentence.
Your turn
S, B and A are Situation, Background and Assessment. Write the word the fourth letter stands for.
S, B, A, then .
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Leaving the ask unsaid because it feels presumptuous. A handover with no Recommendation makes the listener guess what you wanted, and the guess is made with less information than you have.