Date of Award

Summer 8-2019

Document Type

Capstone

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Department

Nursing

Program Affiliation

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

First Advisor

Dr. Mary Rivard

Second Advisor

Dr. Kris Hendrickx

Abstract

In the department of Inpatient Psychiatry at a large mid-western academic medical center, interdisciplinary discharge communication between registered nurses, social workers, advanced practice providers, and physicians has presented as a problem. Patients are frequently discharged from the hospital without being seen by all necessary disciplines and concomitantly discharged without needed supplies, medications, resources, or follow-up appointments in place. This current discharge method negatively affects patient care, causes workflow disruption for all disciplines, and is known to be a contributing factor in increased hospital readmission rates. The purpose of this Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) project was to improve interdisciplinary communication during patient discharge from the hospital, which included the creation, implementation, and education of a smart tool in the electronic health record to provide a central area for communication. The project was modeled and conducted as a pretest-posttest design. Although the results of this project were not statistically significant in some areas of data analysis, significant improvements were via increases in the key discharge metrics of a patient discharged by 12:00 PM and a patient discharged within 2 hours of order release. Of particular note-worthiness is the 1% decrease in hospital readmission rates where such improvement at any level had a positive mental health impact on patients because they were not being readmitted and on the economic impact to the institution as a result of cost-savings.

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