Effects of an Intervention Programme for Improved Discharge-Planning

Since the reduction of hospital costs has led to fewer hospital beds and shorter hospital stay. It is today, as never before important for the nurse to take responsibility for discharge-planning, in order to plan for appropriate resources to meet the patient's and the relatives' needs at home. The questions studied was (1) Will an intervention programme for improved discharge-planning for district nurses and GPs reduce the frequency of (a) re-admissions to the hospital when the patients are at home in the break before the next treatment at the hospital, (b) problems causing re-admissions, and (c) treatments prescribed to solve the problems at re-admissions ? Material. Twenty-eight patients participated in a experimental group and 24 in a control group. Methods. Data were collected from the medical record Results. There was a trend toward fewer re-admissions to the hospital in the experimental group compared with the control group (p< 0.08). Nor was there any significant difference between the groups with regard to the frequency of problems causing re-admissions. Compared with the control group, significantly fewer intravenous nutritions were prescribed in the experimental group (p < 0.05).