A better way to handle patient handoffs from the hospital

As we all know, the time around discharge from the hospital is a tricky one.

In more ways than one can imagine, patients are in a delicate state, judged by those caring for them to no longer be sick enough to need to remain in the hospital, but possibly not quite completely ready to be fully back in the community, on their own at home.

Over the past few years, there have been a lot of interventions aimed at focusing resources on this transition time, trying to figure out the best way to make it a successful one.

All parties involved clearly want to make this smooth and error-free — first and foremost, the patient. Really, no one wants to be in the hospital, no one wanted to be sick, no one wanted to have all those tests done, the IVs, the beeping monitors, the frequent awakenings, getting “rounded on” by the team, the endless questions and invasion of privacy, and so on.

Continue reading …

Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find out how.


Read the full post on KevinMD.com