Self-care index and post-acute care discharge score to predict discharge destination of adult medical inpatients: multicenter validation study protocol

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Antoinette Conca

Department of Nursing Science, University Witten/Herdecke, Germany

: J Aging Geriatr Med

Abstract

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Delays in patient discharge can not only lead to deterioration especially among geriatric patients, but also incorporates unnecessary resources at the hospital level. Many of these delays and their negative impact may be preventable by early focused screening to identify patients at risk for transfer to a post-acute care facility. Early interprofessional discharge planning is crucial in order to fit the appropriate individual discharge destination. As prediction of discharge to a postacute care facility using post-acute care discharge score, the self-care index and a combination of both has been tested in a single centre pilot study, an external validation is still missing. The presentation explains the study protocol and methodology currently being used to replicate the previous pilot findings. This study will use prospective data involving all phases of the quasi-experimental study “In-HospiTOOL” conducted at seven Swiss hospitals in urban and rural areas. During an 18-month period consecutive adult medical patients admitted to the hospitals through the emergency department will be included. We aim to include 6000 patients based on sample size calculation. This data will enable a prospective external validation of the prediction instruments. We expect to gain more insight into the predictive capability of the above mentioned prediction instruments. This approach will allow us to get important information about the generalizability of the three different models. This study will provide evidence on prognostic properties, comparative performance, reliability of scorings, and suitability of the instruments for screening purpose in order to be able to recommend application in clinical practice.

Biography

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Antoinette Conca earned a Master of Nursing Science degree from the University of Basel followed by a Master of Advanced Study in applied statistics. She joined the department of Nursing Development in the Kantonsspital Aarau in 2009 and works as Head of Nursing Development since 2013. There she is part of the interprofessional In-HospiTOOL study group. Her research interests are identification of patients needing post-acute care facilities and interprofessional discharge management.