In the contemporary health care setting, patients are cared for by different practitioners at home and in hospital. This is a reasonable division; however, it also means that the specialists treating a patient in hospital and the home health care nurses need to engage in effectual communication if high-quality care is to be provided for a patient after they were discharged from a hospital (Black et al., 2014; Storm, Schulz, & Aase, 2018). Otherwise, it is likely that the patient may experience additional complications with their health, even though these complications were avoidable (Verhaegh et al., 2014). Therefore, it is paramount to further study innovative approaches to patient transition in order to find out what types of interventions at the stage of transition may be optimal for enhancing patient outcomes. The current paper provides a brief discussion of a research article pertaining to this topic, and proposed a research question to be investigated in a future study.
Discussing a Research Article
An article by Doos et al. (2014) reports a research that employed a mixed design in order to answer the research questions asked in the study. In other words, the authors utilized both qualitative and quantitative methods so as to find answers to the questions that were asked (Doos et al., 2014). The researchers surveyed patients by employing self-completion questionnaires, therefore collecting quantitative data for their study (Doos et al., 2014). In addition, in-depth interviews were also used so as to better understand the opinions of the patients (Doos et al., 2014).
The main problem that the article by Doos et al. (2014) explores is that of the discharge of patients who had two comorbid conditions (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease combined with health failure) from the hospital in which they were treated. The purpose of the said study was to investigate the experiences related to discharge from the hospital that such patients had (Doos et al., 2014).
The main objective of the study carried out by Doos et al. (2014) was to identify the key problems that the said patients were faced with while undergoing the process of discharge from the hospitals where they were treated. The secondary objectives of the said study were to identify the gaps which exist in the health care supplied for patients who have mutimorbid conditions, as well as to find out what solutions may be employed in order to address the said gaps in a manner that would be optimal for both the patients and their health care providers (Doos et al., 2014).
Proposing a Research Question
In order to better explore the effects of enhancing transition from hospital to a home setting, it is possible to use the following PICOT research question:
In patients with diabetes who were discharged from a hospital (P), how does an intervention aimed at gathering additional information from the hospital by a home health care nurse (I), compared to standard transition procedures (C), affect the rates of rehospitalization (O) within three months after the discharge (T)?
Conclusion
On the whole, the process of transition plays an important role in ensuring that the health care needs of a patient are adequately met after they have been discharged from a hospital. Therefore, it is paramount to investigate the potential ways in which such transitions may be enhanced. The current paper proposed a research question pertaining to this problem that can be investigated in a future study.
References
Black, J. T., Romano, P. S., Sadeghi, B., Auerbach, A. D., Ganiats, T. G., Greenfield, S.,…Ong, M. K. (2014). A remote monitoring and telephone nurse coaching intervention to reduce readmissions among patients with heart failure: Study protocol for the Better Effectiveness After Transition-Heart Failure (BEAT-HF) randomized controlled trial. Trials, 15(1), 124.
Doos, L., Bradley, E., Rushton, C. A., Satchithananda, D., Davies, S. J., & Kadam, U. T. (2014). Heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease multimorbidity at hospital discharge transition: A study of patient and carer experience. Health Expectations, 18(6), 2401-2412.
Storm, M., Schulz, J., & Aase, K. (2018). Patient safety in transitional care of the elderly: Effects of a quasi-experimental interorganisational educational intervention. BMJ Open, 8(1), e017852.
Verhaegh, K. J., MacNeil-Vroomen, J. L., Eslami, S., Geerlings, S. E., de Rooij, S. E., & Buurman, B. M. (2014). Transitional care interventions prevent hospital readmissions for adults with chronic illnesses. Health Affairs, 33(9), 1531-1539.