Referral communication: the SBAR handover

Information lost between facilities kills as surely as bleeding: the unmentioned tourniquet left on for five hours, the magnesium dose given twice because nobody wrote the time, the surgeon who never prepared because nobody called. SBAR — Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation — is a 60-second structure that makes critical information survive the journey. It works on a phone call, on a referral note, and face-to-face.