Hospital Practices and Research

From Handover to High-Reliability Care: Why Hospitals Need to Measure the Transfer of Clinical Responsibility

Articles in Press

Document Type : Editorial

Authors

Taher Elmi 1
Amir Vahedian-Azimi 2

1 Department of Parasitology and Mycology, School of Medicine, Arak University of Medical Sciences, Arak, Iran

2 Nursing Care Research Center, Clinical Sciences Institute, Nursing Faculty, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

10.30491/hpr.2026.255324
Abstract
Care fragmentation is a recognized source of risk in hospitals. During an inpatient stay, responsibility for the patient passes repeatedly between teams and across shifts, and is eventually transferred to outpatient services. Each transfer is more than an administrative step. It is the point at which clinical information and responsibility for the patient must be conveyed without loss or distortion.
Despite decades of patient-safety work, clinical handover has not been established as a reliable process. The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Patient Safety Report 2024 identifies care transitions as a recurring source of risk in hospitals and includes them among the high-priority concerns of the Medication Without Harm initiative. Awareness is no longer the limiting factor, because clinicians and administrators already recognize that poor handovers cause harm. The task that remains is to convert handover from a compliance requirement into reliable bedside practice and to treat it as a measurable indicator of clinical quality.

Keywords

Patient
Clinical Handover
Hospital
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Hospital Practices and Research

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 30 September 2026

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