Discharge Follow-Up of Patients in Primary Care Does Not Meet Their Care Needs: Results of a Longitudinal Multicentre Study

Adequate coordination between healthcare levels has been proven to improve clinical indicators, care costs, and user satisfaction. This is more relevant to complex or vulnerable patients, who often require increased care. This study aims to evaluate the differences between hospital discharge follow-...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nursing reports (Pavia, Italy) Italy), 2024-09, Vol.14 (3), p.2430-2442
Main Authors: López-Luis, Noelia, Rodríguez-Álvarez, Cristobalina, Arias, Angeles, Aguirre-Jaime, Armando
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Caregivers
Chronic illnesses
Comparative analysis
Continuity of care
continuity of patient care
Data collection
Families & family life
Health care industry
Health care reform
Hospitals
Hypotheses
Medical records
Mortality
Orthopedics
patient discharge
patient transfer
Patients
primary healthcare
Prostheses
Regression analysis
Socioeconomic factors
Socioeconomic status
Statistical significance
Variables
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Summary:Adequate coordination between healthcare levels has been proven to improve clinical indicators, care costs, and user satisfaction. This is more relevant to complex or vulnerable patients, who often require increased care. This study aims to evaluate the differences between hospital discharge follow-up indicators, including number of general practitioners' (GPs) and community nurses' (CNs) consultations, presentiality of consultations, type of first post-discharge consultation, and time between hospital discharge and first consultation. Vulnerable and non-vulnerable patients were compared. A longitudinal retrospective study was carried out in the north of Tenerife on the post-discharge care of patients discharged from the Canary Islands University Hospital (Spanish acronym HUC) between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2022. The results obtained show deficiencies in the care provided to patients by primary care (PC) after being discharged from the hospital, including delayed first visits, low presentiality of those visits that were less frequent even with increased patient complexity, scarce first home visits to functionally impaired patients and delays in such visits, and a lack of priority visits to patients with increased follow-up needs. Addressing these deficiencies could help those most in need of care to receive PC, thus reducing inequalities and granting equal access to healthcare services in Spain.
ISSN:2039-4403
2039-439X
2039-4403
DOI:10.3390/nursrep14030180