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The Delivery Of Health Related Services

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Literature Review In our current healthcare system, the delivery of health related services involves the “movement” of patients from one care setting to another. Also recognized as transitions of care these actions often occur between acute-care hospitals and post-acute care settings such as rehabilitation centers and nursing homes. Transitions of care, however, do not only occur between in-patient settings. Patients discharged from the hospital to their home or shuffled between a primary care clinic and specialty clinic also experience transitions of care. In any instance, transitions of care place patients at increased risk for errors due to ineffective communication between doctors, nurses, patients, and other service providers. …show more content…

Marcotte, Kirtane, Lynn, and Mckethan explored how health information technology (HIT) integration could allow for more seamless transitions of care (2015). Based on data acquired from the Beacon Communities and the National Quality Forum Safe Practices Report they identified four areas in which HIT could be used to improve transitions between the acute-care hospital and post-acute setting. The areas identified were the discharge process, information flow and feedback, medication and adherence, and patient and caregiver engagement (Marcotte, et al., 2014). While some HIT innovations have been successfully implemented they found that the incorporation of HIT in transitions of care was still significantly underdeveloped (Marcotte et al., 2015). This was greatly attributed to the sluggish adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) as well as a lack of EHR interoperability to allow for nationwide information exchange (Marcotte et. al., 2015). Despite these barriers, there have been some practical HIT developments such as electronic risk stratification tools and clinical decision support tools. These instruments identify patients at increased risk for post-acute complications by scoring clinical prognosis, functional status, social, and economic factors. Electronic tools such as these allow discharge planners, case managers, and other members of the care team to identify at risk patients earlier and

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