Patient discharge planning receiving more attention

Discharge planning has been an often neglected time in a patient’s hospital stay, which is likely one of the main reasons 20% of patients return to the hospital within 30 days, reports The New York Times. Several new programs have taken root to reverse this trend and ensure that patient care at discharge is a focal point to prevent patients from returning to the hospital.

Two of these programs, Project BOOST (Better Outcomes for Older adults through Safe Transitions) and Care Transitions Intervention, are leading the way. Project BOOST is a creation of the Society for Hospital Medicine and provides interested hospitals with a toolkit of standardized forms to streamline the discharge process. Care Transitions Intervention is out of the University of Colorado Denver’s School of Medicine, with funding from the John A. Hartford Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

I wrote about the Care Transition Intervention program a couple of years ago in Briefings on Patient Safety. At that time, this project was a newer take on how to manage the handoff process for patients being discharged from the hospital. It also gave rise to the notion of a “transitions coach,” a similar concept to that of the “patient navigator” I posted about last week.

Has your facility taken part in any program that focuses on patient discharge as a means of preventing rehospitalization?