Until we can get consistent transfer of information, we won't be doing as well as we should. Sometimes the primary care physicians don't even know their patient was admitted to the hospital when they see them in their office for a post-hospital visit. That's unacceptable.
DR. NAGAMINE is a hospitalist at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Santa Clara, Calif., and a past chair of the Society of Hospital Medicine's Quality and Patient Safety Committee. She is also the chair of the California BOOST Collaborative, which aims to reduce readmissions by improving the hospital discharge process.
We're starting to do things in a more stepwise fashion, planning for discharge from the day patients come in.
Source DR. NAGAMINE