Complete and timely communication of information. Clinicians in the hospital send discharge summaries to outpatient providers one to two days after discharge, using standardized formats. Essential information includes diagnoses, test and procedure results, pending tests, medication lists, rationale for medication changes, advance directives, caregiver status, contact information for the discharging physician, and recommended follow up care. Medication reconciliation. Clinicians reconcile medications at each transition for example, to inpatient, outpatient, or post acute care. Clinicians check the accuracy of medication lists and dosages, and look for contraindications. Clinicians also assess financial barriers to filling prescriptions and provide medication lists to outpatient providers. Medications can be reconciled by physicians, pharmacists, nurses, or care managers. Care Transitions Best Practices and Evidencebased Programs January 2014 oorly coordinated care transitions from the hospital to other care settings cost an. Patientcaregiver education using the teach back method. In this method, patients are asked to restate instructions or concepts in their own words. Education can be supplemented by illustrations and written materials at appropriate reading levels. Education focuses on major diagnoses, medication changes, time of follow up appointments, self care, warning signs, and what to do if problems arise. Physicians, nurses, care managers, or discharge planners provide education before and after discharge. Open communication between providers. Communication occurs between care settings and among multidisciplinary teams within each setting. Responsibilities are clearly defined for the discharging provider and the subsequent provider. The discharging provider confirms that the subsequent provider received the discharge summary and pertinent test results, and responds to questions promptly. Information transfer involves physicians, nurses, care managers, office personnel, and information technology staff. Prompt follow up visit with an outpatient provider after discharge. Hospital staff schedule follow up visits prior to discharge. Such visits are generally recommended within seven days of discharge. Providers offer follow up care, ongoing symptom and medication management, and 2. Physicians, nurses, pharmacists, andor care managers follow up with patients during office visits, home visits, or by phone. The research strongly suggests that these best practices create a strong foundation for high quality, cost saving care transitions from the hospital to home. Multiple providers can share responsibility for completing each best practice, as long as each providers role is clearly defined. A 2. 00. 9 consensus guideline on care transitions, which was jointly published by six medical professional societies, also indicates that programs should be evaluated using measures that address gaps in care and directly affect quality. Most successful care transitions programs have focused on transitions from the hospital to home, as have almost all of the transitions programs that were evaluated in randomized controlled trials RCTsthe gold standard of research. Three of the effective hospital to home programs not only reduced readmissions or poor outcomes, but also reduced costs. Each of these programs incorporated most of the best practices in care transitions, and each has been implemented by providers nationwide. The Care Transitions Intervention. This intervention was conducted in a large integrated delivery system in Colorado from 2. Advanced practice nurses met with high risk elderly patients prior to discharge, then conducted one home visit and three phone calls over four weeks following discharge. The intervention reduced readmissions within 3. Program costs were factored in to the net savings estimate. The Transitional Care Model. This intervention was conducted in six academic and community hospitals in Philadelphia from 1. Advanced practice nurses provided a minimum of eight home visits to high risk elderly patients for three months, and were available by phone seven days a week. The intervention reduced the readmission rate after one year by 3. Program costs were factored into the net savings estimate. Project RED Re engineered Discharge. This intervention was conducted at the Boston Medical Center from 2. Nurse discharge advocates met in person with patients before their discharge, made follow up appointments with primary care physicians PCPs, and sent discharge summaries to PCPs. Pharmacists called patients two to four days after discharge to review medications and communicated problems to PCPs. The intervention reduced the combined rate of 3. ED visits by 3. 0 percent. Total health care spending in the 3. The authors do not estimate net savings, but estimate the staff time required for the intervention as a half time nursing position and a 0. These three programs are widely considered to be best practices because they are the only programs that reduced both readmissions and total costs in RCTs. Additional hospital to home transition programs improved patients outcomes, but did not evaluate costs. In a 2. 01. 2 systematic review of RCTs focused on transitions from the hospital to home, at least one outcome measure showed improvement in 2. RCTs. 1. 5There is little high quality research on care transitions between settings other than the hospital to home. Only one RCT evaluated a program focused on transitions from the hospital to long term care LTC facilities. There are no RCTs evaluating other types of care transitions from hospitals to alternative post acute care settings, such as nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities, or home care. In the program that addressed transitions to long term care, a pharmacist coordinated care and reconciled medications for patients entering a LTC facility for the first time. The program improved patients pain management during the eight weeks of follow up, but had no impact on patients use of hospital services. No research to date explicitly evaluates care transitions for patients eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid known as dual eligibles. Because many dual eligibles live in LTC facilities, the one RCT addressing long term care provides the best available evidence for this population. Care management programs for patients living in nursing homes may also suggest effective care transition strategies for dual eligibles. One such program is Evercare, an enhanced primary care initiative staffed by nurse practitioners. By providing additional primary care visits to patients at risk of admission or readmission, the program reduced the hospitalization rate of Evercare enrollees by 5. The programs estimated annual savings was 1. Several successful programs used technology to improve health outcomes. In the 2. 01. 2 systematic review of RCTs focused on hospital to home transitions, five RCTs were based on computer generated communication between providers in different settings. Best Transitions Words© 2017