Clinical Handover Quality Scale

The Clinical Handover Quality Scale (CHQS) is a comprehensive framework and measurement tool for assessing the quality of clinical handovers—the critical communication process by which responsibility for a patient's care is transferred from one provider or team to another. Handovers occur multiple times daily in healthcare settings (shift changes, patient transfers between units, discharge planning, procedure-to-recovery transitions) and are recognized as high-risk moments for communication breakdown, incomplete information transfer, and consequent patient harm. The CHQS measures handover quality across dimensions including information content, clarity, timeliness, opportunity for questions, and documented understanding. It is used in hospitals, operating rooms, and intensive care units to assess handover effectiveness and to guide improvement in standardized handoff protocols such as SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation).