A case method education on discharge management for healthcare professionals working in a general hospital

Abstract

There is concern that reducing length of hospital stay may result in low-quality transitional care for the patients and their families. In order to secure adequate quality for patients and families, hospital workers should effectively acquire a management skill for discharge planning. A case method is a teaching method that is widely used in business schools. Students can enhance their leadership and management skills through discussions on a case example. Prior to this research, we hypothesized that this case method could be adjusted into education of discharge planning. Therefore, we developed a novel educational program of the discharge planning using a case method education.

This program was conducted from April 2012 to July 2012 at Tenri hospital. The participants were provided with a case method education consisting of the following three steps：1) Preparing their opinions about teaching cases prior to the classes. 2) Small group discussions between participants followed by full classroom discussion with the lecturer, 3) A short lecture by the lecturer summarizing key points in the cases. Two healthcare professionals specialized in care transition prepared four cases based on actual care transition in Tenri Hospital.

This program enrolled 57 healthcare staffs working in Tenri Hospital and affiliated care institutions. Over 90% of the participants were satisfied with the program. The participants' self-awareness survey was based on the following four categories：acquiring core competencies for discharge planning, problem extraction through active interaction among the participants, precious opportunities for inter-professional communications, and growing awareness of the problems related to the current discharge planning.

In conclusion, this case method, using a discussion-based education based on actual cases, successfully contributed to enhancing the participants' awareness for management of discharge planning in addition to obtaining the core competency. Furthermore, the program itself could promote inter-professional communications among the hospital workers.