Challenging the information gap – the patients transfer from hospital to home health care

Abstract 

The purpose of this paper is to identify the information that nurses in hospitals exchange with nurses in home health care (HHC), and what nurses perceive to be the most significant information to exchange. Method: Nurses have an obligation to support and ensure continuity of patient care and to prevent an information gap when patients are transferred from one organizational of health care delivery to another organizational level, for example, from hospital to home health care. In an ongoing prospective study, nurses’ pre-electronic nursing discharge note and their assessment of the information it was necessary to exchange at the same time was audited and analyzed.

The results show variation in the completeness and content of the nursing discharge note. Nurses’ understanding of the scope and content of information to be transmitted varies widely according to the context and the organizational health care level they work within.

The implementation of an electronic nursing discharge note creates the opportunity to identify the accurate information elements that must be documented and exchanged between the nurses to ensure patient safety and inter-organizational continuity of care.

Keywords:  Information gap, Continuity of inter-organizational care, Safety, Information content, Hospital discharge, Home health care