Okuzeka
Emergency Medicine & First Aid vocabulary · Ambulance and Prehospital Care

Handover

Meaning in emergency medicine & first aid, with examples

/ˈhændoʊvər/nounCommon term

In emergency medicine & first aid, handover means: The passing of a patient and the key information about them from one team to another, for example from an ambulance crew to emergency department staff.

In Turkish: hasta teslimi, hasta devri

How it is used

Crews give a handover, often in a structured format such as ATMIST, SBAR or MIST, and the receiving team is asked to listen without interrupting. Handover delays leave ambulances waiting outside busy EDs. American English also says 'hand-off' or 'report'.

Example sentences

  1. Can everyone listen for the handover, please? This is Ahmet, 54, chest pain since noon.

  2. Handover delays kept three ambulances outside for over an hour.

Common collocations

  • give a handover
  • clinical handover
  • handover delays
  • structured handover
  • ATMISTA structured format for handing over trauma patients: Age, Time of incident, Mechanism, Injuries, Signs (vital signs) and Treatment given.
  • patient care reportThe written or electronic record an ambulance crew makes for each patient: what happened, the findings, the treatment given and changes over time.
  • emergency departmentThe hospital department that treats people who arrive with a sudden illness or injury, without an appointment, 24 hours a day.
  • vital signsThe basic measurements that show how the body is coping, usually pulse, breathing rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, temperature and level of consciousness.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Ambulance and Prehospital Care

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This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not medical advice.