JAMA Publishes Study on Information Sharing Practices Between US Hospitals and Skilled Nursing Facilities to Support Care Transitions
JAMA Network Open has published a JAHF-funded study on, "Information Sharing Practices Between US Hospitals and Skilled Nursing Facilities to Support Care Transitions."
In a nationally representative survey that asked SNFs to report on information sharing from each of their two highest-volume referring hospitals, Julia Adler-Milstein, PhD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Clinical Informatics and Improvement Research, University of California San Francisco, led the research that found that key information is often missing. The most prevalent types of missing information included functional, mental, and behavioral status as well as who to contact at the hospital with follow-up questions. Information was often delayed and arrived after the patient. Further, it was often difficult to use, with hospital discharge documents containing duplicative and extraneous information. These shortcomings across multiple dimensions of information sharing raise concerns about the hospital-to-SNF transitional care experience and potential for quality and safety challenges.
The study offers national measures of how well information is shared when patients transition from hospitals to SNFs. While patients and their families experience this firsthand, there has been very little insight into what is happening systematically.
To read the paper, click here.
To go to the press release, click here.
To learn about JAHF's support, click here.
