Essay On Discharge Planning

Introduction

Provision of high-quality care at the right time, in the right place and delivered by the right persons is of vital importance in reducing pressure on hospital services. Rapid and efficient discharge of patients from acute hospital beds to the next level of care plays a vital part in ensuring capacity is available for patients needing to access acute care beds. Equally important is the need to ensure that the transition for patients from acute hospital to community care is safe, well coordinated, and well communicated.

Discharge planning begins at the patient’s initial assessment or within 24 hours of admission or initiation of a service (ACT, 2006). It requires the development and implementation of a documented discharge plan, which locates and builds on any previous assessment or care plans.

The purpose of the planning is to ensure continuity of care, so the plan is reviewed and altered to take into account changes in individual housing and social situations, and it should be tailored to the patient’s characteristics (Wibe, et al., 2014). The process of discharge planning is the responsibility of all the healthcare providers involved with the patient. It is, however, coordinated by a named person who has responsibility for ensuring that all aspects of planning have been addressed by the time of discharge from the care setting.

The discharge policy should be developed to support good practice by providing direction for staff involved in the discharge planning process. The aim of the policy should be to ensure provision of fit, timely discharge arrangements to an appropriate safe environment for all patients on completion of their care (Silow-Caroll et al., 2011). The aim of this paper is to analyze discharge policy ...

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...e issue that it deals with it, clarifying what it hopes to achieve, and outlining appropriate and inclusive structures for monitoring and evaluation.

The fourth step is suggesting alternatives such as performing comprehensive patient assessment within twenty-four hours, basing the discharge process on consultation with the multi-disciplinary team, involving the patient and their family in the discharge process, and determining the responsibility of each member of the healthcare team. The fifth step is assessing each of these possible alternatives.

The final step of policy analysis is describing the process of implementing, monitoring, and evaluating the policy.

Overall, it was concluded from analysis of the discharge process of Prince Hamzah Hospital that the policy should remain a live document which could be refined, updated and expanded as required.