Free guide · nursing printables
Nurse Report Sheet: The SBAR Template and Shift Handoff Sheet
A nurse report sheet is a single page that holds everything the next nurse needs about one patient, in the order you say it out loud: Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation. Below is the whole SBAR template, free — copy it onto any blank paper — plus the four lines that keep a 0645 handoff from falling apart.
Written by a 13-year ER night-shift nurse. Free to read here — no sign-up.
Report is not a recital of the chart. It is a transfer of responsibility, and it has to survive a nurse who has been awake for twelve hours and a unit that is still moving. The sheet is what makes that transfer repeatable: same blocks, same order, every patient, so your eyes know where to land even when you are the one receiving.
The four blocks, and what goes in each one
SBAR is a structure, not a script. The value is that each block answers a different question, so nothing important gets skipped because it did not fit the story you were telling.
| Block | The question it answers | What to write |
|---|---|---|
| S — Situation | Why is this patient here right now? | Chief complaint · how they arrived · vitals right now · pain · what they need in the next hour |
| B — Background | What got them to this point? | PMHx · home meds · allergies · what happened before they got here · what has already been done this shift |
| A — Assessment | What do you think is going on? | Exam findings · trend: better / worse / same · labs and imaging back · lines, drips, drains |
| R — Recommendation | What do you need from the next nurse? | Pending labs and tasks · next med due · family update · dispo plan · read-back done |
These are the same four blocks, with the same prompts, printed on the ER Nurse Report Sheet — SBAR Notepad.
Four lines that do more work than the paragraphs
Most of what goes wrong at handoff is not a missing diagnosis. It is a number nobody trended, a lab nobody chased, or a task that was in somebody's head. Four small blocks cover that:
1. Vitals trend — one line per set
Time, HR, BP, RR, temp, SpO2, pain, and a notes column for O2 or rhythm. One line per set, because the direction matters more than any single number. A pressure that went 138/80 → 112/64 → 94/58 tells the next nurse something a single 94/58 cannot.
2. Labs pending / results to chase
The list of what was drawn, what came back, and what is still cooking. This is the block that stops the 0700 call of “did anybody look at that?”
3. Tasks before I leave
Checkboxes, not prose. Med due at shift change, dressing change, family update, transport, whatever you would otherwise say out loud in a hallway and hope was heard.
4. The read-back line
The last sixty seconds: the oncoming nurse repeats the plan back to you before they walk out the door. If it is not on the sheet, it did not get handed off — and the read-back is how you find out before it matters.
How to give report off this sheet in about a minute
Read the header out loud — room, patient, code status, allergies — then walk the four blocks in order without editorializing. Situation first, because the next nurse needs to know how sick this person is before they know the history. Background second, but only the parts that change what they do tonight. Assessment is where you say the sentence you are actually worried about. Then the Recommendation: what is pending, what is due, what you need them to look at first.
Keep a blank copy in your locker and hand one to a float nurse who has never seen the unit. Same page, same order, no hunting. A handoff that works at 0300 is a handoff that works at 0700.
If you have no printed sheet in front of you
Fold a blank page into quarters and label them S, B, A, R. Write the header across the top: room, code status, allergies. That is 90% of the system. What paper adds is the part you cannot improvise at the end of a night: pre-sized ruled blocks so your handwriting still fits, a vitals grid with the right columns, and a lab block that sits next to the task block instead of on the back of somebody's med list.
The printable version
ER Nurse Report Sheet — SBAR Notepad — $7
Six printable US Letter pages built around SBAR and the way ER nights actually run: fewer resources, heavier patients, a handoff that has to work at 0300.
- Blank SBAR sheet with a sticker/name area, code status, allergies, and four ruled sections with prompt lines
- SBAR strip above a vitals-trend grid, plus labs-pending beside tasks-before-I-leave
- The 3 a.m. handoff page: what changed, what is still pending, what to watch
- Four-patient SBAR grid for a full assignment, and a print guide
Carrying more than four patients? The ER Night-Shift Brain Sheet ($7) adds the eight-patient assignment grid and a before-you-clock-out checklist.
These are organizational templates, not clinical instructions. Follow your facility’s handoff policy and documentation requirements; the chart is the legal record, not your brain sheet.