Hospital Discharge Planning Vital To Patients' Recovery

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Carol Levine, director of United Hospital Fund of New York's families and healthcare project, mentioned at a conference that discharge planning was the first thing she would change about how hospitals delivered healthcare. So her organization and others have joined to look at ways to make the discharge process less intimidating for people about to leave the hospital.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Aug. 19, 2002

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/sfl-ybmature19aug19.column?coll=sfla%2Dbusiness%2Dheadlines

[oramar]

Nurses are key resource when it comes to discharge planning. However, that is only if we have small patient loads and enough time to do what needs to be done. Nobody can deal with a complicated discharge case properly if there is tooo much to do. Not when they start with 12 PATIENTS, 6 of whom will be discharged and then 6 come in quickly to fill those beds.