ArticleBMJ quality & safety2012
"It's like two worlds apart": an analysis of vulnerable patient handover practices at discharge from hospital.
Article in BMJ quality & safety, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Experiences with hospital-to-home transitions: perspectives from patients, family members and healthcare professionals. A systematic review and meta-synthesis of qualitative studies.Disability and rehabilitation · 2025Pooled it
- Patient-centered discharge summaries to support safety and individual health literacy: a double-blind randomized controlled trial in Austria.BMC health services research · 2024Trial
- Lost Earnings and Nonmedical Expenses of Pediatric Hospitalizations.Pediatrics · 2018Trial
- Implementing discharge summary documentation: a quality improvement initiative in a Nigerian hospital.BMJ open quality · 2026Article
- Biased Language in Simulated Handoffs and Clinician Recall and Attitudes.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- "Being the main character but not always involved in one's own care transition" - a qualitative descriptive study of older adults' experiences of being discharged from in-patient care to home.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- Pharmacists, nurses, and physicians' perspectives and use of formal and informal interpreters during medication management in the inpatient setting.Patient education and counseling · 2023Article
- Perceived discharge quality and associations with hospital readmissions and emergency department use: a prospective cohort study.BMJ open quality · 2022Article
- Clinical handover communication at maternity shift changes and women's safety in Banjul, the Gambia: a mixed-methods study.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2022Article
- Communication of palliative care needs in discharge letters from hospice providers to primary care: a multisite sequential explanatory mixed methods study.BMC palliative care · 2022Article
- Talking together in rural palliative care: a qualitative study of interprofessional collaboration in Norway.BMC health services research · 2022Article
- Geri Models of Care (MOC): An Immersive Preclerkship Curriculum Fostering Student Exploration of Residential Geriatric Models of Care.MedEdPORTAL : the journal of teaching and learning resources · 2022Article
- Prevalence of medication discrepancies in pediatric patients transferred between hospital wards.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2021Article
- Article
- What makes a "successful" or "unsuccessful" discharge letter? Hospital clinician and General Practitioner assessments of the quality of discharge letters.BMC health services research · 2021Article
- Improvement of transitional care from hospital to home for older patients, the TIGER study: protocol of a randomised controlled trial.BMJ open · 2021Article
- Impacts of Operational Failures on Primary Care Physicians' Work: A Critical Interpretive Synthesis of the Literature.Annals of family medicine · 2020Review
- Patient safety in marginalised groups: a narrative scoping review.International journal for equity in health · 2020Article
- Article
- The Discharge Communication Study: research protocol for a mixed methods study to investigate and triangulate discharge communication experiences of patients, GPs, and hospital professionals, alongside a corresponding discharge letter sample.BMC health services research · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundHandover practices at hospital discharge are relatively under-researched, particularly as regards the specific risks and additional requirements for handovers involving vulnerable patients with limited language, cognitive and social resources.
objectiveTo explore handover practices at discharge and to focus on the patients' role in handovers and on the potential additional risks for vulnerable patients.
methodsWe conducted qualitative interviews with patients, hospital professionals and primary care professionals in two hospitals and their associated primary care centres in Catalonia, Spain.
resultsWe identified handover practices at discharge that potentially put patients at risk. Patients did not feel empowered in the handover but were expected to transfer information between care providers. Professionals identified lack of medication reconciliation at discharge, loss of discharge information, and absence of plans for follow-up care in the community as quality and safety problems for discharge handovers. These occurred for all patients, but appeared to be more frequent and have a greater negative effect in patients with limited language comprehension and/or lack of family and social support systems.
conclusionsDischarge handovers are often haphazard. Healthcare professionals do not consider current handover practices safe, with patients expected to transfer information without being empowered to understand and act on it. This can lead to misinformation, omission or duplication of tests or interventions and, potentially, patient harm. Vulnerable patients may be at greater risk given their limited language, cognitive and social resources. Patient safety at discharge could benefit from strategies to enhance patient education and promote empowerment.
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