The Singapore Family Physician

Back to issue Vol 43 No. 3 - Managing Complex Patients in Family Medicine Settings

An Approach to Caring for Patients with Complex Comorbidities for Family Physician: The SBAR4 model

Lee Kheng Hock
Low Lian Leng
The Singapore Family Physician Vol 43 No 3 - Managing Complex Patients in Family Medicine Settings
6 - 10
1 July 2017
0377-5305
Providing comprehensive and continuing care to patients is the forte of family physicians. The burden of providing such care to patients with complicated co-morbidities is increasing rapidly in ageing populations. Primary care systems around the world are ill equipped to face such a challenge. Family physicians need to hone their skills in this area of care. In this article, we introduce the SBAR4 model and propose it as a framework for managing patients with complex co-morbidities. This model is easy to learn and use by family physicians as it is based on the familiar SBAR model of clinical communication and Pendleton’s 7 Tasks of consultation. We believe that the SBAR4 will assist the clinician to assess patients with complex co-morbidities and map out a comprehensive care plan that can be easily understood by a multidisciplinary team caring for such patients.