Family Physicians’ Perspectives on Informational Continuity during Patient Transitions into Long-Term Care: A Qualitative Descriptive Study

BACKGROUND: When older adults enter long-term care (LTC) and change physicians, comprehensive patient handoff notes are essential to mitigate discontinuity; however, how family physicians engage with information exchange during LTC transitions remains unclear. OBJECTIVE AND METHODS: Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with family physicians to explain their information exchange activities during LTC transactions, as well as barriers and enabling factors. FINDINGS: Handoff notes often contained minimal information, but some physicians maximized the form, provided additional documents, communicated directly with the receiving LTC team, and/or prepared families to transmit information on behalf of their loved one. Suboptimal information transfer was linked to systemic constraints associated with the physicians' practice capacity, but also to their personal perceptions of the value of the information transmitted to LTC. DISCUSSION: The optimization of family physicians' ability to facilitate informational continuity during LTC transitions may require developing minimal standards for form completion, improving interprofessional collaboration during transitions, and improving LTC education experience during medical training.