Problems of collaboration with regional medical facilities in the hospital dealing with patients with acute stage disease

Abstract

Early intervention is required to carry out smooth discharge adjustment in the hospital dealing with patients with acute stage disease. In the present study, we investigated the characteristics of the patients who were unable to return to their original residences on discharge. Subjects were 657 patients (mean age 71.2 years) discharged from our hospital between June 1 to June 30, 2018. Approximately 10% of the patients were unable to return to their original residences. Most of them (N=53) lived in their own home or a nursing home before admission. They were generally old (mean age 81.2 years) and the top reasons of hospital admission were aspiration pneumonia, followed by bone fracture and neurological diseases such as intracranial hematoma or stroke. For the patients with these diseases, the disorder of the activity of daily living (ADL) made it difficult to return to their original residences and they were in need for finding medical facilities for recovery or recuperation on discharge. Thus, early intervention is crucial for the medical staffs including medical social workers, to promote smooth collaboration with regional medical facilities, especially when the elderly patients with above mentioned diseases are hospitalized.