Enfº Gonçalo Domingos

Nurse with Advanced
Postgraduate Degree
in Intensive Care

Enfª Filipa Fernando

Nurse with Advanced
Postgraduate Degree
in Intensive Care

Enfª Isabel Pires

Nurse Specialist in Medical-Surgical Nursing with a specialization in People in Critical Situations
Master's in Nursing
Head Nurse of the Intensive Care Unit at HPA Alvor

ISBAR: A tool that helps health professionals take better care of themselves!

HPA Magazine 24 // 2025

Communication between healthcare professionals is one of the fundamental pillars for ensuring safe and quality care.

The World Health Organization (WHO) points to communication failure as one of the main causes of preventable adverse events in a hospital environment (Directorate-General for Health, 2017). To mitigate communication failures that can put patient safety at risk, the ISBAR method is presented as a healthcare communication standardization tool that is recognized for promoting patient safety in care transition environments (DGS, 2017). It is a simple yet powerful tool that is increasingly used by healthcare institutions committed to patient safety, such as the HPA Health Group.
ISBAR is a model developed to reduce failures in the transfer of information, especially in emergency situations, shift changes, transfers between services, or even between hospital units. Several studies show that the use of the ISBAR method improves the clarity of communication and significantly reduces clinical errors (Fahajan et al., 2023).
 Adopting the ISBAR method is not just a technical issue but also a strategy that protects the patient's life by ensuring that no information is lost or distorted. The ISBAR methodology is much more than a hospital protocol; it is a care tool. It allows healthcare professionals to speak the same “language” when transmitting crucial information, minimizing the risk of error and improving patient outcomes.
According to Burgess et al. (2020), the benefits of this type of communicative approach include transmitting complete information that reduces both missing information and information that may be transmitted in duplicate, reducing the time it takes to pass information, whether at the level of transfers between hospital services or at the level of handover within the service itself, using a practical, clear, and patient-focused approach, increasing trust within the multidisciplinary team, and being able to be used in written communication, making the records themselves clear and concise.
The Joint Commission International (JCI) is an international organization for accrediting the quality and safety of healthcare units that assess compliance with certain requirements at the hospital level so that each accredited institution is synonymous with ensuring certain safety and quality standards in the provision of healthcare to patients. It recognizes the ISBAR communication method as one of the essential patient safety practices. The HPA Health Group follows the JCI standards that defend and seek to promote safe and effective communication in healthcare (HPA Health Group, 2025).

In the Intensive Care Unit of the Alvor Unit, clear, objective, and structured communication is essential to guarantee patient safety and the continuity of excellent care. The team adopts the ISBAR method as a standardized tool for transmitting clinical information between healthcare professionals, whether during shift handovers, requests for medical evaluation, or intra- or inter-hospital transfers.
The ISBAR method organizes communication into five fundamental steps: Identification (I), Situation (S), Background (B), Assessment (A), and Recommendations (R) (General Directorate of Health, 2017). Identification (I) refers to the identification of the patient, and Situation (S) consists of a brief description of the patient's clinical situation. On the other hand, Background (B) refers to relevant information about the patient's past, including medical history, allergies, previous treatments, and other relevant data. Assessment (A) aims to provide a current assessment of the patient, including vital signs, changes in clinical status, and other relevant data. Finally, Recommendations (R) are suggestions about the treatment plan, such as the next step, observation, or consultation with another professional.
The use of this model by the multidisciplinary ICU team contributes to faster and more informed decision-making, improving clinical results, and reinforcing the policy and culture of safety for our patients.
The use of the ISBAR methodology allows for health gains closely related to a lower incidence of errors, a reduction in adverse events and complications, as well as a reduction in delays related to diagnosis and treatment itself, reducing hospital stays and allowing for personalized and safe care (Correia et al., 2024).
In this sense, ongoing training and daily practice with the ISBAR method are widely encouraged, recognizing it as an essential standardized tool for professional and collaborative communication in an intensive care context as in any other clinical service. In this way, it is possible to reduce the loss of information and also contribute to promoting continuity of care (Caselhas, 2020).This resource is framed within the International Patient Goals defined by the JCI, in which structured and standardized communication represent direct gains for the health of all patients who use the HPA Health Group.