When patients discharge... transportation

Published

  1. What happens at discharge in your current hospital?

    • 31
      A staff member or volunteer waits with the patient until s/he is picked up
    • 5
      The patient is dropped off in a waiting area and awaits his/her ride alone
    • 14
      Other

50 members have participated

When patients are discharged from inpatient hospital care where you work, what happens when they leave the floor? Do they go down to the pickup area with a nurse/staff member/volunteer who waits until they are picked up, or are they dropped off in front of the lobby to wait alone for a ride?

Specializes in Pediatric Cardiology.
Sorry forget to add our KPI is 10 am discharges so if you can't get home then you can sit in transit. We inform people of all of this on admission.

Bless the public health system!

Wow, 10AM! We get $10 in hospital money if our patients are out by 10AM. It's really hard to do unless discharge was planned the night before and all paperwork (on the doctors end) is done. Certain services are notoriously slow.

Patients hang out in their rooms until their family arrives. Usually, unless the patient declines transport comes and picks the patient up while the family brings the car around. Sometimes patients hang out for HOURS waiting for a ride, it is annoying. A discharge room would be nice! "Off you go! I don't have a ride, oh well!" :cheeky:

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Specializes in Med/Surg,Cardiac.

Aide or transporter assists them to their car. I think the discharge area is a fantastic idea in a large facility. I wouldn't mind staffing one of those.

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Specializes in Surgical, quality,management.
Aide or transporter assists them to their car. I think the discharge area is a fantastic idea in a large facility. I wouldn't mind staffing one of those.

it is staffed by injured nurses that cannot work on the acute wards anymore as there is no lifting involved.

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Specializes in Hospice, LTC, Rehab, Home Health.

@K+MgSO4

They are killing several birds with that stone. Freeing up patient rooms for new admits, emptying same day areas and decreasing workers comp payments by adding "light duty" spots. Some management type really had their thinking cap on! LOL!

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Specializes in Gerontology, Med surg, Home Health.

I was in the hospital as a patient two weeks ago. The nurse handed me my discharge papers and told me I was free to go. That was it. I had to find my way back to the ER where I had parked my car 3 days previously.

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Specializes in Surgical, quality,management.
@K+MgSO4

They are killing several birds with that stone. Freeing up patient rooms for new admits, emptying same day areas and decreasing workers comp payments by adding "light duty" spots. Some management type really had their thinking cap on! LOL!

Lol gotta love the public health system in Australia! Free beds means we are meeting our "in bed in 4 hours" goal. It is an aim to have pts in a bed on a ward 4 hours from presentation to ED. Or getting electives from the AM list out of recovery. And reducing work cover costs. I know I have been in this game long enough!

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