Post acute care: Can hospitals do better with less?

Abstract

Judging by reports in medical magazines and journals, ?early discharge schemes?, bettertermed ?post acute care?, are not popular with doctors. However, government policyencourages earlier discharge from hospital, so that the choice facing clinicians is todischarge patients early with support, or early without support, or deal with theconsequences of length of stay overruns. Fortunately, government funding for post acutecare is increasing. There is a strong rationale for post acute care based on better patientoutcomes and cost-effectiveness, but these desirable results will only be achieved ifscrupulous attention is paid to detail, as embodied in the 10 principles of post acutecare. To function optimally, post acute care should be coordinated by the hospitalwhich provided the acute care.