Three Ways to Improve Transitions Between Hospital and Post-Acute Care Facilities

​Clinicians and other staff members at post-acute care (PAC) facilities say there exist "substantial deficits in completeness and timeliness" of patient information received after hospital discharge, according to a study published in the January 2017 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association. The authors conducted a web-based, 36-question survey of 71 clinicians and staff members at 29 PAC facilities between October and December 2013. A majority of respondents (83%) reported at least occasionally encountering a problem directly related to inadequate communication from a hospital, and 32% said they received insufficient information about a patient's discharge medical condition and management plan. The study found that while 86% of respondents asked to receive a discharge summary on or before the day of discharge, just 58% reported receipt during this time frame. The most common domain labeled as "insufficient" by respondents was communication between the hospital and clinicians (46% of respondents identified it as insufficient). Respondents were also able to write in their own additional areas for improvement.