Active Engagement

Active Engagement

There are three competency milestones for a patient handover, which are increasingly challenging.

1. Active engagement
2. Clarifying questions
3. Collaborative cross-checking.

Collaborative cross-checking is the most difficult and takes the most time. It should therefore only be used for the most complex (about 5%) of patients.

For the first milestone, the incoming physician needs to be actively engaged in the handover. Active engagement means saying more than OK, right, uh-huh, or yeah. Making connections, showing that what was said was understood, and reading back numeric values are examples of active engagement.

Let Me Try: Identify active engagement

Click the movie clip button below to view examples of an outgoing resident physician giving a handover on a patient. Identify when the incoming clinician (who is not pictured) is demonstrating active engagement.