Objectives: Although hospital clinicians strive to effectively refer patients who require postacute care (PAC), their discharge planning (DP) processes often vary greatly, and typically are not evidence-based.Design: Quasi-experimental study employing pre-post design. Aimed at improving patientcentered discharge processes, we examined the effects of the DIRECT algorithm that provides clinical decision support (CDS) regarding which patients to refer to PAC and to what level of care (home care or facility).Setting and Participants: Conducted in two hospitals, DIRECT data elements were collected in the pre-period (control) but discharging clinicians were blinded to the advice and provided usual discharge care. During the post-period (intervention), referral advice was provided within 24 hours of admission to clinicians, and updated twice daily. Propensity modeling was utilized to account for differences between the pre-/post-patient cohorts.Measures: Outcomes compared between the control and the intervention periods included PAC referral rates, patient characteristics, and same-, 7-, 14-, and 30-day readmissions or emergency department (ED) visits.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.