AI Article Synopsis

  • Embedding a nurse practitioner in resident teams during hospital discharges enhanced communication between the medical team and patients, leading to more timely discharge summaries and follow-up appointments.
  • Patients who received this intervention reported higher satisfaction and were better informed about whom to contact post-discharge, showing improved understanding of the process.
  • Despite these improvements in discharge practices and efficiency for residents, there was no significant impact on the rates of emergency department visits or readmissions within 30 days.

Article Abstract

Background: Hospital discharges are vulnerable periods for patient safety, especially in teaching hospitals where discharges are done by residents with competing demands. We sought to assess whether embedding a nurse practitioner on a medical team to help physicians with the discharge process would improve communication, patient follow-up, and hospital reutilization.

Methods: A 5-month randomized controlled trial was conducted on the medical service at an academic tertiary-care hospital. A nurse practitioner was randomly assigned to 1 resident team to complete discharge paperwork, arrange follow-up appointments and prescriptions, communicate discharge plans with nursing and primary care physicians, and answer questions from discharged patients.

Results: Intervention patients had more discharge summaries completed within 24 hours (67% vs. 47%, P < 0.001). Similarly, they had more follow-up appointments scheduled by the time of discharge (62% vs. 36%, P < 0.0001) and attended those appointments more often within 2 weeks (36% vs. 23%, P < 0.0002). Intervention patients knew whom to call with questions (95% vs. 85%, P = 0.003) and were more satisfied with the discharge process (97% vs. 76%, P < 0.0001). Attending rounds on the intervention team finished on time (45% vs. 31%, P = 0.058), and residents signed out on average 46 minutes earlier each day. There was no significant difference between the groups in 30-day emergency department visits or readmissions.

Conclusions: Helping resident physicians with the discharge process improves many aspects of discharge communication and patient follow-up, and saves residents' time, but had no effect on hospital reutilization for a general medicine population.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jhm.924DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

discharge process
16
discharge
9
resident team
8
nurse practitioner
8
physicians discharge
8
communication patient
8
patient follow-up
8
follow-up appointments
8
intervention patients
8
improving discharge
4

Similar Publications

Background: Health-related Quality of life (HRQoL) assessment is essential for optimizing patient care, treatment adjustments, and medical decision-making, particularly in post-Myocardial Infarction (MI) patients, but limited data exists on HRQOL post-MI from Pakistan. This study aimed to assess HRQoL and its determinants in the Pakistani population.

Methods: A single-center cross-sectional study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital in Karachi, Pakistan.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Sleep Related Painful Erections (SRPE) are parasomnias exclusive to Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, causing sleep disturbances, daytime fatigue, and impaired quality of life. Due to a lack of standardized management, we developed a diagnostic and treatment pathway for this rare condition at our institution. Patients diagnosed with SRPE from 2017-2024 by strict criteria were recruited into our novel pathway.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Utilizing MOFs Melt-Foaming to Design Functionalized Carbon Foams for 100% Deep-Discharge and Ultrahigh Capacity Sodium Metal Anodes.

ACS Nano

December 2024

State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Process and Technology for Materials, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, P. R. China.

Meltable metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) offer significant accessibility to chemistry and moldability for developing carbon-based materials. However, the scarcity of low melting point MOFs poses challenges for related design. Here, we propose a MOFs melt-foaming strategy toward Ni single atoms/quantum dots-functionalized carbon foams (NiSA/QD@CFs).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Numerous individuals experiencing homelessness have a pet. When a homeless person is hospitalized for an emergency medical need, discharge planners are sometimes faced with tough options and a lack of resources for safe discharges from the hospital. We detail the case of a 64-year-old female patient who was admitted due to a witnessed syncopal event.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Adult-onset Still's disease (AOSD) is an uncommon systemic inflammatory disorder that presents with diverse, overlapping symptoms, complicating the diagnostic process due to its nonspecific clinical features and the absence of a definitive diagnostic test. Diagnosis is often challenging and relies on excluding other conditions while maintaining a high index of suspicion, supported by specific diagnostic criteria such as Yamaguchi or Fautrel. Prompt recognition and a multidisciplinary approach are essential, as AOSD can progress to life-threatening multiorgan dysfunction due to a hyperinflammatory response.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Notice

Message: fwrite(): Write of 34 bytes failed with errno=28 No space left on device

Filename: drivers/Session_files_driver.php

Line Number: 272

Backtrace:

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: session_write_close(): Failed to write session data using user defined save handler. (session.save_path: /var/lib/php/sessions)

Filename: Unknown

Line Number: 0

Backtrace: