Download PDF: Clinical Communiqué December 2020 Edition
In this edition
Editorial
Don’t ask, don’t tell
An incomplete picture
Clinical handover to primary care – Why reframing ‘discharge summaries’ as ‘clinical handovers’ matters
Editorial
Welcome to our fourth and final edition of the Clinical Communiqué, for 2020, a year like no other. It was a year where we all braced ourselves for COVID-19 changes in our workplaces. Consciously or not, we learnt to be more flexible, adaptive, resilient. The COVID-19 pandemic threw many hardships and challenges at health care systems, but it also created opportunities to review and improve models of care.
Though many clinicians in health care reached the end of 2020 with a collective sense of exhaustion and cognitive overload, much was learnt and achieved. That is a tribute to the dedication of people around the world who found the time to share their knowledge and experiences – about COVID-19, and everything else in health care that we must continue to focus on to keep patients safe. Upon review of the systems that underpin healthcare, some have proven to be well designed and effective, while others were not fit for purpose, and in need of improvement. Coronial investigations are an objective form of review for identifying underperforming systems and formulating practical recommendations to improve patient safety.