Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Can we close the gaps in care transitions?

In his Christmas Day post Bob Wachter had this to say about fumbled handoffs:

“…If transitional glitches were measured, and if botching them carried consequences, every hospital in the country would identify an accountable person in a nanosecond.”

Get ready to clear out the corner office of the C-Suite for the Chief Transitions Officer.

Although we’re not very good at washing our hands, we are terrific at washing our hands of patients who leave our medical radar screens.


That post contained a link to a wonderful resource which I had glossed over until recently: The Care Transitions Program. There you’ll find interesting vignettes, all sorts of implementation tools and a strong business case for a transition team.

Show it to your administrators. I did!

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