A TeleHandover is a video-conferenced team-to-team clinical handover for patients transferring between hospitals or to another healthcare service or facility.
They are interdisciplinary and use a case conference format. Patients who are complex, non-critical and requiring rehabilitation or ongoing care will benefit from Tele-Handover. Tele-Handover includes the patient (and family or carers if appropriate) and interdisciplinary teams from both sending and receiving facilities (or community teams).
The Mackay Hospital and Health Service program has evolved to include Residential Aged Care Facility (RACF) patients returning to their place of residence and for assessment and acceptance of new resident placements. This program is enabling timely, shared clinical decisions to be made with patient and/or carer involvement. It facilitates the safe transfer of care of patients to the setting most appropriate to their needs, often closer to home and their support base.
TeleHandover is well accepted in Mackay HHS facilities with good clinical participation and a number of clinical areas actively requesting virtual handovers before accepting patient transfers in or referring patients on to other sites.