This guide helps health care institutions develop and implement processes for sending and receiving patients from one care setting to another. The information and plans provided allow institutions to measure their performance in transitions of care and identify areas for improvement.

Topics covered are:

• Introduction
• Background
• Evaluating and improving transitions of care in your institution
• Nursing home to emergency department (ED)/hospital transfer
• Appendices
  • Appendix A: Emergency medical services (EMS)/ambulance transfer of patient from a nursing home to hospital
  • Appendix B: Hospital receipt of patient from nursing home
  • Appendix C: ED/hospital to nursing home transfer
  • Appendix D: EMS transport of patient to nursing facility
  • Appendix E: Nursing home receipt of patient from the hospital
  • Appendix F: Evaluation: a basic primer
  • Appendix G: Literature review - transitions from the nursing home to the hospital
  • Appendix H: Institute for Healthcare Improvement tips for effective measures
  • Appendix I: National Transitions of Care Coalition (NTOCC) tools
  • Appendix J: NTOCC proposed framework for measuring transitions of care
  • Appendix K: Annotated bibliography and references