Article Description

Authors: Holland, Diane E.; Hemann, Michele A.

Source: Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, Volume 37, Number 1, January 2011 , pp. 29-36(8)

Publisher: Joint Commission Resources

Background: Improving the quality of patient coordination in the transition from hospital to home is a high-priority health care concern. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Conditions of Participation in the Medicare Program require that hospitals have a discharge planning (DP) process in effect that applies to all patients. The impact of a practice change in DP practice on the quality of care coordination at discharge was evaluated from patients' perspectives.

Methods: A multifactor, evidence-based DP practice change, which included merging of DP specialist roles and use of an early screen for DP decision support tool, was initiated in a large, Midwestern academic medical center and evaluated in a nonequivalent comparison group design with separate pre- and postpractice change samples. The three-item Care Transitions Measure™ (CTM-3™) was mailed to adults recently discharged from one medical and one surgical nursing unit before and after the practice change.

Results: Response rates were 52.4% before (218/416) and 39.5% (153/387) after the practice change. There were no significant differences between characteristics of the pre- and postpractice change participants. The mean CTM-3 score of patients who received assistance from the nurse/social worker DP team improved by 14 points (67.2 to 81.2), although the data were skewed with a ceiling effect, rendering the results inconclusive.

Conclusions: Although the CTM-3 results were inconclusive, the practice change resulted in a clinically meaningful decrease in length of stay for a group of older patients at greater risk for complex discharge plans. The proactive approach to DP proved to be a valuable shift. The successes of the standardization of DP processes and improved multidisciplinary teamwork were important considerations for implementation throughout the organization.

Document Type: Research article

Publication date: 2011-01-01

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