| The majority of patients admitted to emergency departments (EDs) are discharged home to care for themselves. Inadequate discharge instructions can lead poor patient outcomes. Lack of patient and caregiver understanding of discharge instructions can lead to poor patient compliance with filling the prescribed medication(s), poor compliance with scheduling follow-up visits, unnecessary return visits to the ED, unnecessary hospital admissions, and an increase in healthcare cost. Focusing and individualizing discharge instructions for each discharged patient can increase understanding and decrease the risk of poor patient outcomes. This doctoral project entailed educating ED nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and physicians at an urban ED on the importance of and how to provide focused and individualized discharge instructions. Once the education was completed, this doctoral project was implemented. Nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and physicians provided focused and individualized discharge instructions in the free-text space on the front page of the discharge instructions for patients discharged from the ED. Compliance with implementation was measured through retrospective chart audits. Patient improvement in compliance with scheduling follow up visits, filling the prescribed medication(s), understanding of discharge instructions, and satisfaction of care was measured through an ED questionnaire called call backs. The call back data obtained during the implementation of this project were measured against previously obtained call back data. Patient improvements were noted in all areas of measurement. |
