Patient education
After visit summary: In-patient transition
After visit summaries are an important aspect of patient education. Penny Wheeler, MD, CEO, Allina Health, explains how the after visit summary can support patients as they transition from the in-patient hospital service to their next setting of care.
After visit summary
Hi, I'm Penny Wheeler, Allina's chief clinical officer. I'm here to talk to you today about a very important work that were doing, to try to support patients, as they transition from the in-patient hospital service to their next setting of care and that portion of work is the after visit summary.
The Allina Health Transition of Care Program in general is designed to help support patients, as they make transitions from one setting of care to another and reduce things like avoidable readmissions.
A key component of this is making sure that patients and their caregivers understand what they should be doing, as they transition to that different setting. That's where the after visit summary comes into play.
One of our goals, as a health system is to try to support patients and reduce avoidable readmissions. Our goal this year is to do so by reducing them by 15 percent. That really equates to 450 patients, who can be better cared for at home or a home like setting and avoid an unnecessary admission to the hospital. Again, the after visit summary provides us, as a mechanism to do just that.
It's fortunate that today where not only is it the right thing to do for our patients, but also we're being rewarded financially for being able to keep people appropriately out of the hospital, when they don't require acute stays for their care.
The after visit summaries are a focus initiative within the Transitions of Care Program. We will provide all caregivers with an eLearning capability, so that they can see how this will support their patients transitions of care, making sure they're on the right medications and making sure we can reconcile all the components of their care that are necessary, as they make this challenging transition. We really appreciate in advance your participation in this work that will have such meaning to the people that we serve.
Allina physician leadership is committed, to helping support this after visit summary for the patients that we serve. We really appreciate everybody's support, as the, the bottom line is this is the right thing to do for the patients we serve.
Thank you in advance for your participation and for the care you provide our patients each and every day.
Allina Health's Patient Education Department
Allina Health's Patient Education Department creates written patient education materials for health care providers throughout Allina Health.
See online versions of their award-winning manuals.
For more information, call 612-262-6069612-262-6069 or email patienteducation@allina.com.
Health video library
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Other patient education resources
MEDLINEplus Health Topics
Maintained by the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINEplus. Documents within this resource are hyper-linked, making them ideal for patients to explore on their own.
healthfinder.gov
This compendium of consumer health and human services information is maintained by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
American Academy of Family Physicians
Patient information resources maintained by the American Academy of Family Physicians.
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry's Resources for Families
Patient information resources maintained by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
Vaccine Information Statements (VIS)
Vaccine Information Statements (VIS) are developed and updated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to inform parents and recipients of immunizations about the benefits and risks of the vaccine prior to administration. Available in 22 languages, these documents can be printed out and given to the patient.
Medication information for patients
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The United States Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) may offer information about medications that you can find nowhere else.
Patient labs
Lab Tests Online
Created by a collaboration of several professional societies representing the lab community, this site is intended to inform patients about their labs and what they mean. May require a higher reading level than some other patient information resources.