Evaluation of the acceptability of standardised clinical handover tools at four Victorian health services.

Objective: To evaluate the appropriateness and acceptability of five standardised tools for shift-to-shift clinical handover (CH).

Setting And Participants: In July 2007, a pilot project was conducted in four Victorian public health services. Five standardised tools developed by the Victorian Quality Council were trialled at night medical handover: an organisational readiness checklist, a suggested organisational policy, a recommended organisational protocol, a CH template containing a minimum dataset to be collected, and a set of key performance indicators.