Implementing a Family-Centered Rounds Intervention Using Novel Mentor-Trios.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Patient and Family Centered I-PASS (PFC I-PASS) emphasizes family and nurse engagement, health literacy, and structured communication on family-centered rounds organized around the I-PASS framework (Illness severity-Patient summary-Action items-Situational awareness-Synthesis by receiver). We assessed adherence, safety, and experience after implementing PFC I-PASS using a novel "Mentor-Trio" implementation approach with multidisciplinary parent-nurse-physician teams coaching sites. METHODS: Hybrid Type II effectiveness-implementation study from 2/29/19-3/13/22 with ≥3 months of baseline and 12 months of postimplementation data collection/site across 21 US community and tertiary pediatric teaching hospitals. We conducted rounds observations and surveyed nurses, physicians, and Arabic/Chinese/English/Spanish-speaking patients/parents. RESULTS: We conducted 4557 rounds observations and received 2285 patient/family, 1240 resident, 819 nurse, and 378 attending surveys. Adherence to all I-PASS components, bedside rounding, written rounds summaries, family and nurse engagement, and plain language improved post-implementation (13.0%-60.8% absolute increase by item), all P < .05. Except for written summary, improvements sustained 12 months post-implementation. Resident-reported harms/1000-resident-days were unchanged overall but decreased in larger hospitals (116.9 to 86.3 to 72.3 pre versus early- versus late-implementation, P = .006), hospitals with greater nurse engagement on rounds (110.6 to 73.3 to 65.3, P < .001), and greater adherence to I-PASS structure (95.3 to 73.6 to 72.3, P < .05). Twelve of 12 measures of staff safety climate improved (eg, "excellent"/"very good" safety grade improved from 80.4% to 86.3% to 88.0%), all P < .05. Patient/family experience and teaching were unchanged. CONCLUSIONS: Hospitals successfully used Mentor-Trios to implement PFC I-PASS. Family/nurse engagement, safety climate, and harms improved in larger hospitals and hospitals with better nurse engagement and intervention adherence. Patient/family experience and teaching were not affected.

Perioperative Environment Safety Culture: A Scoping Review Addressing Safety Culture, Climate, Enacting Behaviors, and Enabling Factors.

While there is an increasing interest in patient safety and in transforming safety culture in the perioperative environment, it is not clear what methods are being used to understand, assess, and influence safety culture and climate. This article seeks to uncover what instruments and measures are used to assess safety culture and investigates how these measures are applied in baseline assessments and interventions in the perioperative environment to enhance/support safety culture. Study investigators are encouraged to collect and analyze data about engaging in behaviors that prevent, respond to, or resolve safety issues, and related factors that support understanding their effects.

Family, nurse, and physician beliefs on family-centered rounds: A 21-site study.

BACKGROUND: Variation exists in family-centered rounds (FCR). OBJECTIVE: We sought to understand patient/family and clinician FCR beliefs/attitudes and practices to support implementation efforts. DESIGNS, SETTINGS AND PARTICIPANTS: Patients/families and clinicians at 21 geographically diverse US community/academic pediatric teaching hospitals participated in a prospective cohort dissemination and implementation study. INTERVENTION: We inquired about rounding beliefs/attitudes, practices, and demographics using a 26-question survey coproduced with family/nurse/attending-physician collaborators, informed by prior research and the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. MAIN OUTCOME AND MEASURES: Out of 2578 individuals, 1647 (64%) responded to the survey; of these, 1313 respondents participated in FCR and were included in analyses (616 patients/families, 243 nurses, 285 resident physicians, and 169 attending physicians). Beliefs/attitudes regarding the importance of FCR elements varied by role, with resident physicians rating the importance of several FCR elements lower than others. For example, on adjusted multivariable analysis, attending physicians (odds ratio [OR] 3.0, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.2-7.8) and nurses (OR 3.1, 95% CI 1.3-7.4) were much more likely than resident physicians to report family participation on rounds as very/extremely important. Clinician support for key FCR elements was higher than self-reported practice (e.g., 88% believed family participation was important on rounds; 68% reported it often/always occurred). In practice, key elements of FCR were reported to often/always occur only 23%-70% of the time. RESULT: Support for nurse and family participation in FCR is high among clinicians but varies by role. Physicians, particularly resident physicians, endorse several FCR elements as less important than nurses and patients/families. The gap between attitudes and practice and between clinician types suggests that attitudinal, structural, and cultural barriers impede FCR.

Intervention, individual, and contextual determinants to high adherence to structured family-centered rounds: a national multi-site mixed methods study.

BACKGROUND: Effective communication in transitions between healthcare team members is associated with improved patient safety and experience through a clinically meaningful reduction in serious safety events. Family-centered rounds (FCR) can serve a critical role in interprofessional and patient-family communication. Despite widespread support, FCRs are not utilized consistently in many institutions. Structured FCR approaches may prove beneficial in increasing FCR use but should address organizational challenges. The purpose of this study was to identify intervention, individual, and contextual determinants of high adherence to common elements of structured FCR in pediatric inpatient units during the implementation phase of a large multi-site study implementing a structured FCR approach. METHODS: We performed an explanatory sequential mixed methods study from September 2019 to October 2020 to evaluate the variation in structured FCR adherence across 21 pediatric inpatient units. We analyzed 24 key informant interviews of supervising physician faculty, physician learners, nurses, site administrators, and project leaders at 3 sites using a qualitative content analysis paradigm to investigate site variation in FCR use. We classified implementation determinants based on the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. RESULTS: Provisional measurements of adherence demonstrated considerable variation in structured FCR use across sites at a median time of 5 months into the implementation. Consistent findings across all three sites included generally positive clinician beliefs regarding the use of FCR and structured rounding approaches, benefits to learner self-efficacy, and potential efficiency gains derived through greater rounds standardization, as well as persistent challenges with nurse engagement and interaction on rounds and coordination and use of resources for families with limited English proficiency. CONCLUSIONS: Studies during implementation to identify determinants to high adherence can provide generalizable knowledge regarding implementation determinants that may be difficult to predict prior to implementation, guide adaptation during the implementation, and inform sustainment strategies.

Association of Patient and Family Reports of Hospital Safety Climate With Language Proficiency in the US.

Importance: Patients with language barriers have a higher risk of experiencing hospital safety events. This study hypothesized that language barriers would be associated with poorer perceptions of hospital safety climate relating to communication openness. Objective: To examine disparities in reported hospital safety climate by language proficiency in a cohort of hospitalized children and their families. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cohort study conducted from April 29, 2019, through March 1, 2020, included pediatric patients and parents or caregivers of hospitalized children at general and subspecialty units at 21 US hospitals. Randomly selected Arabic-, Chinese-, English-, and Spanish-speaking hospitalized patients and families were approached before hospital discharge and were included in the analysis if they provided both language proficiency and health literacy data. Participants self-rated language proficiency via surveys. Limited English proficiency was defined as an answer of anything other than "very well" to the question "how well do you speak English?" Main Outcomes and Measures: Primary outcomes were top-box (top most; eg, strongly agree) 5-point Likert scale ratings for 3 Children's Hospital Safety Climate Questionnaire communication openness items: (1) freely speaking up if you see something that may negatively affect care (top-box response: strongly agree), (2) questioning decisions or actions of health care providers (top-box response: strongly agree), and (3) being afraid to ask questions when something does not seem right (top-box response: strongly disagree [reverse-coded item]). Covariates included health literacy and sociodemographic characteristics. Logistic regression was used with generalized estimating equations to control for clustering by site to model associations between openness items and language proficiency, adjusting for health literacy and sociodemographic characteristics. Results: Of 813 patients, parents, and caregivers who were approached to participate in the study, 608 completed surveys (74.8% response rate). A total of 87.7% (533 of 608) of participants (434 [82.0%] female individuals) completed language proficiency and health literacy items and were included in the analyses; of these, 14.1% (75) had limited English proficiency. Participants with limited English proficiency had lower odds of freely speaking up if they see something that may negatively affect care (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.26; 95% CI, 0.15-0.43), questioning decisions or actions of health care providers (aOR, 0.19; 95% CI, 0.09-0.41), and being unafraid to ask questions when something does not seem right (aOR, 0.44; 95% CI, 0.27-0.71). Individuals with limited health literacy (aOR, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.48-0.91) and a lower level of educational attainment (aOR, 0.59; 95% CI, 0.36-0.95) were also less likely to question decisions or actions. Conclusions and Relevance: This cohort study found that limited English proficiency was associated with lower odds of speaking up, questioning decisions or actions of providers, and being unafraid to ask questions when something does not seem right. This disparity may contribute to higher hospital safety risk for patients with limited English proficiency. Dedicated efforts to improve communication with patients and families with limited English proficiency are necessary to improve hospital safety and reduce disparities.

Chronic wounds in persons living with dementia: An integrative review.

BACKGROUND: Persons living with dementia (PLWD) are at risk for chronic wounds; however, they are rarely included in research. OBJECTIVES: To inform practice and research directions, the aim of this integrative review was to identify and synthesise previous knowledge about the characteristics of chronic wounds in PLWD, in terms of chronic wound types, prevalence, setting and interventions. DESIGN: A literature search was conducted for publications in English using PubMed, Web of Science and CINAHL. The minimum information required for inclusion was how many PLWD enrolled in the study had wounds. METHODS: This integrative review followed the Whittemore and Knafl methodology. Data extraction and synthesis were guided by a directed content analysis, with a coding structure based on an initial review of the literature. RESULTS: Thirty-six articles met the inclusion criteria. The majority were missing characteristics of PLWD including severity of dementia and race/ethnicity/nationality, and none mentioned skin tone. Most focused on pressure injuries in the nursing home and acute care setting. Few included information on interventions. Only one discussed challenges of wound care for a PLWD exhibiting aggression. CONCLUSION: There is a gap in the literature regarding PLWD and chronic wounds other than pressure injuries that are common in older adults (e.g. diabetic foot ulcers, venous leg ulcers). Research is warranted among those PLWD who live alone and those who receive wound care from family caregivers to understand experiences. Knowledge can inform the development of future novel interventions for wound healing. Future research is needed regarding chronic wounds in those who exhibit behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Nurses that care for chronic wounds in PLWD can contribute their knowledge to include information in guidelines on best care practices and contribute their perspective to research teams for future research.

Systematic Approach for Comparing Team-based Care Processes.

Team-based care process modeling techniques have focused on understanding and designing solutions for a single site. Less is known about tailoring an effective team-based care process from one site to another, which is necessary for multi-site implementation efforts. We propose an approach for analyzing and comparing a team-based care process performed at two sites to inform redesign opportunities. Our approach includes abstracting the goals and strategies of each process by identifying whether sociotechnical system element differences exist. Element differences may exist for the phase, tasks, roles, information, and technology and tools. Differences in system elements may still support process goals and strategies and, thus, be irrelevant for redesign opportunities. We demonstrate the utility of the approach using an operating room to intensive care unit handoff protocol. This approach should be useful for researchers and practitioners that are tailoring and implementing a successful team-based care process at more than one site.

Planning the Episode: Home Care Admission Nurse Decision-Making Regarding the Patient Visit Pattern.

During home health care (HHC) admissions, nurses provide input into decisions regarding the skilled nursing visit frequency and episode duration. This important clinical decision can impact patient outcomes including hospitalization. Episode duration has recently gained greater importance due to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) decrease in reimbursable episode length from 60 to 30 days. We examined admissions nurses' visit pattern decision-making and whether it is influenced by documentation available before and during the first home visit, agency standards, other disciplines being scheduled, and electronic health record (EHR) use. This observational mixed-methods study included admission document analysis, structured interviews, and a think-aloud protocol with 18 nurses from 3 diverse HHC agencies (6 at each) admitting 2 patients each (36 patients). Findings show that prior to entering the home, nurses had an information deficit; they either did not predict the patient's visit frequency and episode duration or stated them based on experience with similar patients. Following patient interaction in the home, nurses were able to make this decision. Completion of documentation using the EHR did not appear to influence visit pattern decisions. Patient condition and insurance restrictions were influential on both frequency and duration. Given the information deficit at admission, and the delay in visit pattern decision making, we offer health information technology recommendations on electronic communication of structured information, and EHR documentation and decision support.

Handoffs and transitions in critical care-understanding scalability: study protocol for a multicenter stepped wedge type 2 hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial.

BACKGROUND: The implementation of evidence-based practices in critical care faces specific challenges, including intense time pressure and patient acuity. These challenges result in evidence-to-practice gaps that diminish the impact of proven-effective interventions for patients requiring intensive care unit support. Research is needed to understand and address implementation determinants in critical care settings. METHODS: The Handoffs and Transitions in Critical Care-Understanding Scalability (HATRICC-US) study is a Type 2 hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial of standardized operating room (OR) to intensive care unit (ICU) handoffs. This mixed methods study will use a stepped wedge design with randomized roll out to test the effectiveness of a customized protocol for structuring communication between clinicians in the OR and the ICU. The study will be conducted in twelve ICUs (10 adult, 2 pediatric) based in five United States academic health systems. Contextual inquiry incorporating implementation science, systems engineering, and human factors engineering approaches will guide both protocol customization and identification of protocol implementation determinants. Implementation mapping will be used to select appropriate implementation strategies for each setting. Human-centered design will be used to create a digital toolkit for dissemination of study findings. The primary implementation outcome will be fidelity to the customized handoff protocol (unit of analysis: handoff). The primary effectiveness outcome will be a composite measure of new-onset organ failure cases (unit of analysis: ICU). DISCUSSION: The HATRICC-US study will customize, implement, and evaluate standardized procedures for OR to ICU handoffs in a heterogenous group of United States academic medical center intensive care units. Findings from this study have the potential to improve postsurgical communication, decrease adverse clinical outcomes, and inform the implementation of other evidence-based practices in critical care settings. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT04571749 . Date of registration: October 1, 2020.

Implementing Family-Centered Rounds in Hospital Pediatric Settings: A Scoping Review.

CONTEXT: The American Academy of Pediatrics and Institute for Patient and Family-Centered Care issued a joint policy statement in 2012 recommending family and nurse participation in rounds as a standard practice. OBJECTIVE: To synthesize available evidence on the state of the implementation of family-centered rounds (FCRs), including identified barriers to stakeholder acceptance and participation in FCRs in pediatric inpatient settings and implementation strategies to increase adherence and related outcomes. DATA SOURCES: PubMed and Medline and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. STUDY SELECTION: Observational and experimental studies from January 2009 to July 2020. DATA EXTRACTON: Two reviewers independently screened each study to determine eligibility and extract data. Initial evidence quality was evaluated on the basis of study design. RESULTS: A total of 53 studies were included in the final synthesis. FCRs are increasingly accepted by stakeholders, although participation lags. Structural barriers to nurse and family attendance persist. Limited high-quality evidence exists regarding the effectiveness of FCRs and related implementation strategies in improving patient outcomes. The lack of a clear, consistent definition of the elements that combine for a successful FCR encounter remains a significant barrier to measuring its effect. CONCLUSIONS: Standardized research methods for improving the quality and comparability of FCR studies are needed to enhance the existing guidelines for FCR use. Structural changes in care delivery may be required to ensure the rounding process remains amenable to the needs of patients and their families.

A Cross University-Led COVID-19 Rapid-Response Effort: Design, Build, and Distribute Drexel AJFlex Face Shields.

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how a new cross-community leadership team came together, collaborated, coordinated across academic units with external community partners, and executed a joint mission to address the unmet clinical need for medical face shields during these unprecedented times. Key aspects of this success include the ability to forge and leverage new opportunities, overcome challenges, adapt to changing constraints, and serve the significant need across the Philadelphia region and healthcare systems. We teamed to design-build durable face shields (AJFlex Shields). This was accomplished by high-volume manufacturing via injection molding and by 3-D printing the key headband component that supports the protective shield. Partnering with industry collaborators and civic-minded community allies proved to be essential to bolster production and deliver approximately 33,000 face shields to more than 100 organizations in the region. Our interdisciplinary team of engineers, clinicians, product designers, manufacturers, distributors, and dedicated volunteers is committed to continuing the design-build effort and providing Drexel AJFlex Shields to our communities.

Getting to Complete and Accurate Medication Lists During the Transition to Home Health Care.

OBJECTIVES: Characterize the work that home health care (HHC) admission nurses complete as part of the medication reconciliation tasks, explore the impact of shared electronic medication data (interoperability) from the referral source on medication reconciliation, and highlight opportunities to enhance medication reconciliation with respect to transition in care to HHC agencies. DESIGN: Observational field study. SETTINGS AND PARTICIPANTS: Three diverse Pennsylvania HHC agencies; each used different electronic health record systems with different interoperability characteristics. Six nurses per site admitted 2 patients each (36 patients total). METHODS: Researchers observed the admission process in the patient home and at the HHC agency. The nurses' tasks related to medication reconciliation were characterized by (1) number and change types (ie, medications dropped or added; changes to dose, frequency/administration time, or tablet types) made to the referrer medication list during and after the home visit, and (2) reasons that the nurse called the health provider (doctor, pharmacy) to resolve medication-related issues. Differences between interoperable and non-interoperable observations were explored. RESULTS: Polypharmacy (on average, study patients were taking more than 12 medications) and high-risk medications (on average, more than 8 per patient) were pervasive. For 91% of patients, the number of medications decreased between pre- and post-reconciliation medication lists; 41% of the medications required changes. Nurses using interoperable systems needed to make fewer changes than nurses using non-interoperable systems. In two-thirds of observations, the nurse called a provider. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Changes to the referrer medication list and calls to providers highlighted the nurses' effort to complete the medication reconciliation. Interoperability appeared to reduce the number of changes required, but did not eliminate changes or calls to providers. We highlight opportunities to enhance medication reconciliation with respect to transition in care to HHC agencies.

There's a Problem With the Problem List: Incongruence of Patient Problem Information Across the Home Care Admission.

OBJECTIVES: Illustrate patterns of patient problem information received and documented across the home health care (HHC) admission process and offer practice, policy, and health information technology recommendations to improve information transfer. DESIGN: Observational field study. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Three diverse HHC agencies using different commercial point-of-care electronic health records (EHRs). Six nurses per agency each admitted 2 patients (36 total). METHODS: Researchers observed the admission process and photographed documents and EHR screens across 3 phases: referral, assessment, and plan of care (POC). To create a standardized data set, we mapped terms within medical diagnoses, signs, symptoms, and Problems to 5 of the 42 Omaha System Problem Classification Scheme problem terms. This created 180 problem pattern cases (5 problem patterns per patient). RESULTS: Each pattern of problem information being present or absent was observed. In 52 cases (28.9%), a problem did not appear. In 36 cases (20%), the problem appeared in all 3 phases. In 46 cases (25.6%), the problem appeared in referral and/or assessment phases and not on the POC. Conversely, in 37 cases (20.5%), the problem appeared in referral or assessment phases and on the POC. In 9 cases (5%), the problem only appeared on the POC. Within the EHRs, there were no rationale fields to clarify including Problems or not and no problem status fields to identify active, resolved, or potential ones. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Diagnosis or problem information transferred from the referral source or gathered during an in-home assessment did not appear in the POC. Because of the EHR structure, clinicians could not identify inactive problem or problem priority. Documentation or mapping of a structured problem list using a standardized interprofessional terminology such as the Omaha System coupled with identification of rationale could support the documentation of problem status and priority and reduce information loss.

Incorporating home healthcare nurses' admission information needs to inform data standards.

OBJECTIVE: Patient transitions into home health care (HHC) often occur without the transfer of information needed for critical clinical decisions and the plan of care. Owing to a lack of universally implemented standards, there is wide variation in information transfer. We sought to characterize missing information at HHC admission. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a mixed methods study with 3 diverse HHC agencies. Focus groups with nurses at each agency identified what information supports patient care decisions at admission. Thirty-six in-home admissions with associated documentation review determined the available information. To inform information standards development for the HHC admission process, we compared the types of information desired and available to an international standard for transitions in care information, the Continuity of Care Document (CCD) enhanced with Office of the National Coordinator for Healthcare Information Technology summary terms (CCD/S). RESULTS: Three-quarters of the items from the focus groups mapped to the CCD/S. Regarding available information at admission, no observation included all CCD/S data items. While medication information was needed and often available for 4 important decisions, concepts related to patient medication self-management appeared in neither the CCD/S nor the admission documentation. DISCUSSION: The CCD/S mostly met HHC nurses' information needs and is recommended to begin to fill the current information gap. Electronic health record recommendations include use of a data standard: the CCD or the proposed, more parsimonious U.S. Core Data for Interoperability. CONCLUSIONS: Referral source and HHC agency adoption of data standards is recommended to support structured, consistent data and information sharing.

Identification of temporal condition patterns associated with pediatric obesity incidence using sequence mining and big data.

BACKGROUND: Electronic health records (EHRs) are potentially important components in addressing pediatric obesity in clinical settings and at the population level. This work aims to identify temporal condition patterns surrounding obesity incidence in a large pediatric population that may inform clinical care and childhood obesity policy and prevention efforts. METHODS: EHR data from healthcare visits with an initial record of obesity incidence (index visit) from 2009 through 2016 at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and visits immediately before (pre-index) and after (post-index), were compared with a matched control population of patients with a healthy weight to characterize the prevalence of common diagnoses and condition trajectories. The study population consisted of 49,694 patients with pediatric obesity and their corresponding matched controls. The SPADE algorithm was used to identify common temporal condition patterns in the case population. McNemar's test was used to assess the statistical significance of pattern prevalence differences between the case and control populations. RESULTS: SPADE identified 163 condition patterns that were present in at least 1% of cases; 80 were significantly more common among cases and 45 were significantly more common among controls (p < 0.05). Asthma and allergic rhinitis were strongly associated with childhood obesity incidence, particularly during the pre-index and index visits. Seven conditions were commonly diagnosed for cases exclusively during pre-index visits, including ear, nose, and throat disorders and gastroenteritis. CONCLUSIONS: The novel application of SPADE on a large retrospective dataset revealed temporally dependent condition associations with obesity incidence. Allergic rhinitis and asthma had a particularly high prevalence during pre-index visits. These conditions, along with those exclusively observed during pre-index visits, may represent signals of future obesity. While causation cannot be inferred from these associations, the temporal condition patterns identified here represent hypotheses that can be investigated to determine causal relationships in future obesity research.

Temporal condition pattern mining in large, sparse electronic health record data: A case study in characterizing pediatric asthma.

OBJECTIVE: This study introduces a temporal condition pattern mining methodology to address the sparse nature of coded condition concept utilization in electronic health record data. As a validation study, we applied this method to reveal condition patterns surrounding an initial diagnosis of pediatric asthma. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The SPADE (Sequential PAttern Discovery using Equivalence classes) algorithm was used to identify common temporal condition patterns surrounding the initial diagnosis of pediatric asthma in a study population of 71 824 patients from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. SPADE was applied to a dataset with diagnoses coded using International Classification of Diseases (ICD) concepts and separately to a dataset with the ICD codes mapped to their corresponding expanded diagnostic clusters (EDCs). Common temporal condition patterns surrounding the initial diagnosis of pediatric asthma ascertained by SPADE from both the ICD and EDC datasets were compared. RESULTS: SPADE identified 36 unique diagnoses in the mapped EDC dataset, whereas only 19 were recognized in the ICD dataset. Temporal trends in condition diagnoses ascertained from the EDC data were not discoverable in the ICD dataset. DISCUSSION: Mining frequent temporal condition patterns from large electronic health record datasets may reveal previously unknown associations between diagnoses that could inform future research into causation or other relationships. Mapping sparsely coded medical concepts into homogenous groups was essential to discovering potentially useful information from our dataset. CONCLUSIONS: We expect that the presented methodology is applicable to the study of diagnostic trajectories for other clinical conditions and can be extended to study temporal patterns of other coded medical concepts such as medications and procedures.

Availability and Quality of Information Used by Nurses While Admitting Patients to a Rural Home Health Care Agency.

Home health care admission nurses need high quality patient information but that information is not uniformly available. Despite this challenge, these nurses must make four critical decisions at patient admission to construct the plan of care: (1) patient problems to address in the home health care episode; (2) patient medication management; (3) services in addition to skilled nursing; and (4) skilled nursing visit pattern. We observed 12 in-home admissions at a rural home health care agency and interviewed nurses before and after about these decisions. We analyzed content and quality of documents. To evaluate quality, for each decision we assessed concordance between documents. Interview responses provided context in the analysis. Across all admissions, documents and their contents were not uniformly present. Nurses rarely received visit pattern or medication management information. There was discordance in the number of patient problems among and between available documents and the plan of care. Electronic health record design recommendations include interoperability and structured, consistent, actionable information.

Incongruence of Patient Problem Information Across Three Phases of Home Care Admission: There's a Problem with the Problem List.

In home health care, the patient problem list is an important component of the admission and care planning processes and determines the subsequent care received. We examined the information received from the referring facilities and its relationship with the final patient problem list generated at home health care admission. Researchers observed 12 admissions and collected available documents related to the admission and care planning process. Problems identified in documents provided to admission nurses (input documents) and in documents subsequently created by those nurses (output documents) were coded to form a standardized set of problem terms across the documents. Documents available, distribution of problems within the documents, and concordance between input and output documents were assessed. A varying number of the 17 unique problems found across the documents were distributed by document type. Patients were referred to home health care with more clinical problems than were documented in the output documents.