SBAR — the Canadian standard for clinical hand-offs
Lesson 1 of 3 in Professional Communication for IENs · 22 minutes
SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation) is the universal communication framework in Canadian healthcare. It works for shift hand-offs, calls to physicians, transfers, and emergency communication. This lesson teaches the structure and the practice.
What you'll learn
- Apply the SBAR structure to hand-off situations
- Use SBAR when calling a physician
- Communicate the right level of detail for each setting
- Recognize SBAR variants in different settings
From the lesson
SBAR was developed in the US Navy submarine service for high-stakes communication and adopted by healthcare in the 2000s. Today, every Canadian hospital and most community settings use SBAR (or a close variant). It's the structure for: shift hand-offs, calls to physicians, transfers between units, code situations, and any situation where you need someone to act on information quickly. Mastering SBAR is one of the most career-improving skills for IENs.
1. The four parts of SBAR
S — Situation. What's happening RIGHT NOW. The most current, urgent fact.
Examples: • 'I'm calling about Mrs. Chen in 412B. She's having chest pain.' • 'I'm handing off Mr. Williams. He's resting.' • 'There's been a fall…