SBAR Communication Template

S: Situation (What is happening right now?)

• Identify yourself, your unit, and the patient (name, room, admitting provider)
• State the immediate concern in one sentence

"I am calling about ___ in room ___. The problem is ___. It started ___ and it is (getting worse / stable / improving)."

B, Background (What led up to this?)

• Admitting diagnosis and date of admission
• Relevant medical history, allergies, and code status
• Recent treatments, medications, labs, or procedures

A, Assessment (What do you think is going on?)

• Most recent vital signs (and how they've changed)
• Focused assessment findings related to the concern
• Your clinical impression, it's OK to say "I'm not sure what the problem is, but the patient is deteriorating"

R, Recommendation (What do you need?)

• Say what you think is needed: "I request that you ___" (assess the patient, give an order, transfer)
• Clarify: "If no improvement, when should I call back?"
• Read back any new orders to confirm

What Belongs in Each Box

This is a structural example, not a clinical one. The numbers, findings and actions in a real call come from your own assessment and your facility's protocol. What is being taught here is the shape of the handover, which is what an assessor is listening for.

S	Who you are, where you are calling from, who the patient is, and the single problem prompting the call. One sentence. Assessors listen for whether you named the problem or buried it.
B	Only the history that bears on this problem: why the patient is admitted, relevant conditions, code status, allergies. Background is the most commonly over-filled box, and length here is what makes a call hard to follow.
A	Your observations and what you make of them, stated as your assessment rather than as a diagnosis. Report the values you measured and say plainly how they have changed since the last set.
R	What you are asking for, and by when. Name the action you want and state your own escalation plan if the situation changes before help arrives. A request without a timeframe is the most common weak ending.