BackgroundThirty-day hospital readmissions represent an international challenge leading to increased prevalence of adverse events, reduced quality of care and pressure on healthcare service’s resources and finances. There is a need for a broader understanding of hospital readmissions, how they manifest, and how resources in the primary healthcare service may affect hospital readmissions. The aim of the study was to examine how nurses and nursing home leaders experienced the resource situation, staffing and competence level in municipal healthcare services, and if and how they experienced these factors to influence hospital readmissions.MethodThe study was conducted as a comparative case study of two municipalities affiliated with the same hospital, chosen for historical differences in readmission rates. Nurses and leaders from four nursing homes participated in focus groups and interviews. Data were analyzed within and across cases.ResultsThe analysis resulted in four common themes, with some variation in each municipality, describing nurses’ and leaders’ experience of the nursing home resource situation, staffing level and competence and their perception of factors affecting hospital readmissions. The nursing home patients were described as becoming increasingly complex with a subsequent need for increased nurse competence. There was variation in competence and staffing between nursing homes, but capacity building was an overall focus. Economic limitations and attempts at saving through cost-cutting were present, but not perceived as affecting patient care and the availability of medical equipment. Several factors such as nurse competence and staffing, physician coverage, and adequate communication and documentation, were recognized as factors affecting hospital readmissions across the municipalities.ConclusionSeveral factors related to nurses’ and leaders’ experience of the resource situation, staffing and competence level were suggested to affect hospital readmissions and the municipalities were similar in their answers regarding these factors. Patients were perceived as more complex with higher patient mortality forcing long-term nursing homes to shift towards an acute care or palliative function, and short-term nursing homes to function as “small hospitals”, requiring higher nurse competence. Staffing, competence and physician coverage did not seem to have adjusted to the new patient group in some nursing homes.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12913-018-3769-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

ObjectivesTo explore hospital physicians’ views on readmission and discharge processes in the interface between hospitals and municipalities.DesignQualitative case study.SettingThe Norwegian healthcare system.ParticipantsFifteen hospital physicians (residents and consultants) from one hospital, involved in the treatment and discharge of patients.ResultsThe results of this study showed that patients were being discharged earlier, with more complex medical conditions, than they had been previously, and that discharges sometimes were perceived as premature. Insufficient capacity at the hospital resulted in pressure to discharge patients, but the primary healthcare service of the area was not always able to assume care of these patients. Communication between levels of the healthcare service was limited. The hospital stay summary was the most important, and sometimes only, form of communication between levels. The discharge process was described as complicated and was affected by healthcare personnel, by patients themselves and by aspects of the primary healthcare service. Early hospital discharges, poor communication between healthcare services and inadequacies in the discharge process were perceived to affect hospital readmissions.ConclusionThe results of this study provide a better understanding of hospital physicians’ views on the discharge and hospital readmission processes in the interface between the hospital and the primary healthcare service. The study also identifies discrepancies in governmental requirements, reform regulations and current practices in municipalities and hospitals.

BackgroundHospital readmissions is an increasingly serious international problem, associated with higher risks of adverse events, especially in elderly patients. There can be many causes and influential factors leading to hospital readmissions, but they are often closely related, making hospital readmissions an overall complex area. In addition, a comprehensive coordination reform was introduced into the Norwegian healthcare system in 2012. The reform changed the premises for readmissions with economic incentives enhancing early transfer from secondary to primary care, making research on readmissions in the municipalities more urgent than ever. General practitioners (GPs) and nursing home physicians, have traditionally held a gatekeepers function in hospital readmissions from the municipal healthcare service, as they are the main decision-makers in questions of hospital readmissions. Still, the GPs’ gatekeeper function is an under-investigated area in hospital readmission research. The aim of the study was to increase knowledge about factors that lead to hospital readmissions among elderly in municipal healthcare, with special attention to GPs’ and nursing home physicians’ decision making.MethodThe study was conducted as a comparative case study. Two municipalities affiliated with the same hospital, but with different readmission rates were recruited. Twenty GPs and nursing home physicians from each municipality were recruited and interviewed. Forty hours of observation were conducted during the huddles in one long-term and one short-term nursing home in each municipality.ResultsSeven themes describing how different factors influence physicians’ decision-making in the hospital readmission process in two municipalities were identified. Poor communication, continuity and information flow account for hospital readmissions in both municipalities. Several factors, including nurse staffing and competence, patients and their families, time constraints and experience affected physicians’ decision-making.ConclusionCommunication, continuity and information flow contributed to hospital readmissions in both municipalities. The cross-case analysis revealed slight differences between municipalities. More research focusing on GPs’ and nursing home physicians’ decision-making, nursing home nurses and home care nurses’ experience of hospital readmissions and discharges is needed.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12913-018-3538-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to increase knowledge of the role organizational factors have in how health personnel make efficiency-thoroughness trade-offs, and how these trade-offs potentially affect clinical quality dimensions.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is a thematic synthesis of the literature concerning health personnel working in clinical, somatic healthcare services, organizational factors and clinical quality.FindingsIdentified organizational factors imposing trade-offs were high workload, time limits, inappropriate staffing and limited resources. The trade-offs done by health personnel were often trade-offs weighing thoroughness (e.g. providing extra handovers or working additional hours) in an environment weighing efficiency (e.g. ward routines of having one single handover and work-hour regulations limiting physicians' work hours). In this context, the health personnel functioned as regulators, balancing efficiency and thoroughness and ensuring patient safety and patient centeredness. However, sometimes organizational factors limited health personnel's flexibility in weighing these aspects, leading to breached medication rules, skipped opportunities for safety debriefings and patients being excluded from medication reviews.Originality/valueBalancing resources and healthcare demands while maintaining healthcare quality is a large part of health personnel's daily work, and organizational factors are suspected to affect this balancing act. Yet, there is limited research on this subject. With the expected aging of the population and the subsequent pressure on healthcare services' resources, the balancing between efficiency and thoroughness will become crucial in handling increased healthcare demands, while maintaining high-quality care.

Introduction: Patient safety and the occurrence of adverse events in hospitals is a topic which has been widely addressed over the last decades. In that respect, there has been an increasing interest in the effect of working conditions on patient safety, and whether understaffing and adverse events are correlated. This paper therefore reports results from a study of understaffing of nurses understood as a lack of nurses available to conduct the tasks required of them. This implies that nurses are forced to ignore or postpone important tasks, thereby compromising patient safety. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to increase the knowledge of understaffing of hospital nurses, and the consequences that understaffing may have on patient safety. Methods: A literature search of the databases Chinal, Medline, Cochrane library, Isi Web of Science and Academic Search premiere was conducted in the period January 2014 to February, 2016. Results: Results are categorized into two main themes and four subthemes. The first main theme describes the direct relationship between understaffing and patient safety. Poor staffing increases the risk of mortality, and adverse conditions such as pressure ulcers, deep vein thrombosis and hospital-related infections. The second main theme relates to the indirect implications of understaffing for patient safety. These implications pertain to the lack of time that nurses could give each patient, limitations in the quality of nursing, and challenges in safe medication administration. Conclusions: The study documents the relationship between understaffing of nurses and adverse events in hospitals, revealingthat understaffing of nurses is a risk factor for hospitalized patients.

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Medication management and the transmission of medication information between healthcare services have proven to be essential factors in hospital readmissions. The patients primary healthcare services are caring for at present have complex medical conditions, leading to even greater challenges in transferring correct information across different healthcare services. This chapter describes how healthcare personnel perceive medication management as an influencing factor in hospital readmissions, and explores which elements may lead to medication-related hospital readmissions from the primary healthcare service.