Patient Oriented Discharge Summaries: Putting Patients at the Centre of Follow-Up Care

Please consider sharing this with your Quality Committee, your clinical staff, site coordinators or anyone who is working in your team to make a difference with follow-up after hospitalization.  We understand that teams are sometimes frustrated in their efforts to provide meaningful follow-up for patients after they have been hospitalized.  AFHTO and research partners from the University Health Networks OpenLab are implementing a project that can help with that. The project is called Patient-Oriented Discharge Summaries (PODS) and is free to primary care providers. So far, it has been implemented across the province in 27 hospitals (and counting!).  It was funded by the Adopting Research to Improve Care (ARTIC) Program, which is run by the Council of Academic Hospitals of Ontario and Health Quality Ontario. ARTIC fast-tracks the adoption of proven health care interventions into broader clinical practice across the health system.

What are PODS?

Patient Oriented Discharge Summaries (PODS) are simple forms that ensure patients have the information they need before going home (see sample).  These forms were co-designed with patients and caregivers, and they are provided to patients when they are discharged from hospital. A PODS form contains five key pieces of information for the patient and their caregivers about what care the patient needs after they get home:

• Signs and symptoms to watch out for
• Medication instructions
• Appointments
• Routine and lifestyle changes
• Telephone numbers and info to have handy

PODS have already had positive results at hospitals where they have been implemented. Early results show that they have a positive impact on patient understanding and adherence to follow up appointments with primary care following discharge from hospital (read an article about it here).

How can I get PODS for my patients?

Primary care providers can get some of the benefits of PODS in a few different ways:

1. Get in touch with your local participating hospital: see the list of hospitals who are already participating and contact the local lead to learn more about what they are doing.
2. Get your hospital(s) on the project: If your local hospital is not participating in the project, perhaps you can persuade them to inquire. The PODS team would be happy to hear from them!
3. Ask your patients if they received a PODS: If you know a patient has been in hospital, ask them if they have received a PODS and discuss it with them.
4. Provide PODS handouts to your patients: If you are referring a patient for hospitalization, give them the PODS brochure so they can take action on their own behalf to get the information they need. You could do this even if your hospital is NOT participating in the project. Handouts will be ready in early fall and we welcome anyone who wants to design or co-brand them with us.
5. Customize the PODS with your team/hospital logo: The PODS team will be happy to work with you to customize the form with your logo and local information.

I need more information!

Think you might be ready to get started, but want to know more? Check out the PODS Online Toolkit or email the research team. Want to learn more about how the PODS project is going? Check out their presentation at the AFHTO 2017 conference. Want to get better at tracking follow-up after hospitalization? Check out these ideas and resources from AFHTO.