What the next person needs to know

What we found in the news

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s TeamSTEPPS handoff guidance (opens in a new tab), created and reviewed in May 2023, treats a clinical handoff as a transfer of information and responsibility. It emphasizes acknowledgment by the receiver and a chance to clarify what remains uncertain.

One component is particularly useful to pause over:

“Opportunity to ask questions and review”

— AHRQ, Tool: Handoff, “How To Use a Handoff Effectively”

This is professional teamwork guidance, rather than a new trial of one handover method. It gives us a starting point for thinking about everyday continuity. A clinical team and a community program have different responsibilities, but both can ask whether the next person has what they need to begin.

Why this matters to us

Imagine an afternoon staff member arriving at a day program. A participant’s return transport time is still being confirmed. One colleague has spoken with the transport service; another has promised to update the participant. The incoming worker sees a note saying that transport is being arranged.

That illustrative note may be accurate, yet leave the next person guessing. Has anyone called back? Who is following up? Does the participant know what is happening?

At genus, we are interested in those small gaps between knowing something and making it useful to another person. The task is to give a colleague enough context to act within their role, without requiring them to reconstruct the whole morning.

Write for the person receiving the handover

Consider a routine handover your team already uses. Read it from the next worker’s position, including someone who was not there yesterday.

Four questions can help:

• What has changed since the previous update?
• What has already been done, and what is still unresolved?
• Who has agreed to take the next action?
• What does the person receiving support want the next worker to understand?

For the transport example, the useful update might identify who contacted the service, when a response is expected and which colleague will tell the participant. There is no need to turn an ordinary arrangement into a long report. The aim is to make the remaining work easy to find.

Distinguish a direct observation from an interpretation. If someone asked for a quieter place after lunch, record the request and what happened next. Avoid allowing an assumption about their mood or motivation to become a fact that travels through successive notes.

Use your organization’s agreed channels and procedures. A quick conversation can clarify a note, while the record still needs to be available to the people responsible for continuing the work.

Leave room for a reply

A handover also needs a receiving person. Making space for their questions may reveal an unanswered practical point: a telephone number is missing, the named colleague has finished their shift, or the person’s preference has changed.

The person receiving care has something to contribute here. Where appropriate, invite them to check the everyday details being passed on. They may want a particular supporter involved, prefer to explain something themselves, or correct a detail before it becomes the next team’s starting point.

For a program manager, a useful small review is to ask the receiving staff member which information they had to search for. Discuss the answer with the people preparing the handover. A missing detail is an opportunity to improve the process without turning a busy colleague into the problem.

These are practical suggestions to adapt with your team. They do not replace clinical handover protocols or transfer a professional responsibility to a participant or family member.

The genus connection

Today, the genus Partner Portal and Community Sense workflows (opens in a new tab) support staff review of recorded activities, observations and information to carry into a handover or next visit, within the modules an organization uses.

Staff review family-facing summaries before sharing them through an available channel. An internal handover and a family update serve different purposes; the same information need not go to everyone. Configuration, access and staff judgment determine what is appropriate.

The useful connection is a place for reviewed context. A system can hold the record; people still need to agree who is doing what next.

One question to take away

If the next person started now, what would they still have to ask before continuing the support?