• J Hosp Med · Aug 2024

    Review

    Transitional care clinics for patients discharged from hospital without a primary care provider: A systematic review.

    • Cait Dmitriew, Del J Houle, Michelle Filipovic, Ella Chochla, Alexander Hemy, Celeste Woods, Nawal Farhat, Alanna Campbell, Lisa J W Liu, Jacquelyn J Cragg, and James A G Crispo.
    • Department of Family Medicine, NOSM University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
    • J Hosp Med. 2024 Aug 1; 19 (8): 720727720-727.

    BackgroundThe transition from hospital to home is a high-risk period. Timely follow-up care is essential to reducing avoidable harms such as adverse drug events, yet may be unattainable for patients who lack attachment to a primary care provider. Transitional care clinics (TCCs) have been proposed as a measure to improve health outcomes for patients discharged from hospital without an established provider. In this systematic review, we compared outcomes for unattached patients seen in TCCs after hospital discharge relative to care as usual.MethodsWe searched the following bibliographic databases for articles published on or before August 12, 2022: MEDLINE, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, PsycINFO, and Web of Science. Five studies were identified that examined the effects of a dedicated postdischarge clinic on emergency department (ED) visits, readmissions, and/or mortality within 90 days of discharge for patients with no attachment to a primary care provider.ResultsStudies were heterogeneous in design and quality; all were from urban centers within the United States. Four of the five studies reported a reduction in either the number of ED visits or readmissions in patients seen in a TCC following hospitalization.ConclusionsTCCs may be effective in reducing hospital contacts in the period following hospital discharge in patients with no established primary care provider. Further studies are required to evaluate the health benefits attributable to the implementation of TCCs across a broad range of practice contexts, as well as the cost implications of this model.© 2024 The Authors. Journal of Hospital Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Hospital Medicine.

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