A scoping review of 70 articles revealed that while interprofessional teams frequently support hospital-to-community care transitions, there is a lack of research evaluating teamwork as a primary outcome.
What strategies are interprofessional teams using to support older adults transitioning from hospital back to the community?
While interprofessional teams are increasingly used to support care transitions from hospital to community, there is a lack of quantitative evaluation regarding the processes used to promote effective teamwork.
Introduction: Poor outcomes following the transition from hospital back to community living are common, especially for older adults with complex health and social care needs. Some health care systems now have multiple interprofessional teams (in hospital and community) to support care transitions. These teams will need to be well coordinated to improve care transition outcomes. Methods: We conducted a scoping review to identify and map peer-reviewed literature on how interprofessional teams are working together to support older adults transitioning from hospital back to the community. We used the six-stage framework developed by Levac and colleagues (2010). Procedures were guided by the Joanna Briggs Institute scoping review guidelines. Results: Our structured search and screening process resulted in 70 articles, published between 2000 and 2022, from 14 counties. Within these articles, 26 programs were described that used interprofessional teams in both the hospital and community. Discussion: The qualitative articles suggested that effective teamwork is very important for promoting care transition quality, but the quantitative research did not report on team-related outcomes. Quantitative research has described, but not evaluated, strategies for promoting interprofessional collaboration. Conclusion: Future research should focus on evaluating processes used to promote effective interprofessional teamwork in care transition interventions.
Brown et al. (Tue,) conducted a review in Care transitions from hospital to community (n=70). Interprofessional teams supporting care transitions was evaluated on Characteristics of articles and strategies used by interprofessional teams to support care transition coordination. A scoping review of 70 articles revealed that while interprofessional teams frequently support hospital-to-community care transitions, there is a lack of research evaluating teamwork as a primary outcome.