JHQ special issue focuses on 'Transitions in Care'

The current issue of the Journal for Healthcare Quality (JHQ) is devoted entirely to an increasingly significant concern in healthcare quality management - how to assure favorable outcomes when transitioning patients from one clinical environment to another or to the home.

JHQ is the peer-reviewed publication of the National Association for Healthcare Quality, www.nahq.org. The JHQ special issue "Transitions in Care" will be published online on Jan. 7 (www.jhq.org), and the print journal will be available Jan. 13.

Articles published in the JHQ special issue will cover topics such as transitioning patient care from the hospital to the home, transferring cardiac patients from the operating room to intensive care units, and addressing the needs of family caregivers.

According to JHQ Editor Maulik Joshi, Ph.D., transitions in care can be broadly defined as practices implemented across the continuum of care, such as within a healthcare delivery organization, across settings (e.g. acute to post-acute) and within a community or population.

"Transition is the thread for every needle in healthcare services, and critical benefits of successful care transitions are preventing hospital readmissions and reducing health care costs," said Joshi. "The contributing authors to the JHQ special issue share their insights, expertise and case reports to help clinicians, healthcare quality management professionals and hospital administrators better understand how to improve their care transitions -- from admission to discharge -- to protect patient safety and reduce hospital readmissions."

Articles to be published in the JHQ special issue are titled:

•Family Caregivers Experiences During Transitions Out of Hospital
•Enhancing the Care Transitions Intervention Protocol to Better Address the Needs of Family Caregivers
•A Standard Handoff Improves Cardiac Surgical Patient Transfer: m Operating Room to Intensive Care Unit
•The Association of Provider Communication and Discharge Instructions on Lower Readmissions
•A Framework To Guide Implementation Research for Care Transitions Interventions
•Improving the Safety of Rural Nursing Home to Emergency Department Transfers
•Using a Small Work Group to Jump Start a Community-wide Effort to Reduce Preventable Hospital Readmissions
•Resident Handoff Training: Initial Evaluation of a Novel Method
•Impact of an Integrated Transitions Management Program in Primary Care on Hospital Readmissions