Midwives and visiting medical officers have a unique relationship within private hospital maternity settings. The effective exchange of accurate information between them is a fundamental element of patient safety and is vital to the success of the clinical handover process.

The SHARED (situation, history, assessment, risk, expectation, documentation) project developed, implemented and evaluated a framework and support tools for improving clinical handover in two private maternity hospitals.

The project included a pre- and post-study design using clinician surveys, chart audits, patient satisfaction surveys and a review of clinical incident data.

A standardised approach to handover, using the SHARED framework with a standardised minimum dataset, improves the accuracy and appropriateness of information.