In the past, many people with severe mental illness did not connect with community services after being discharged from the hospital. The community was also not prepared to serve this population. Discharge planning and care, then, is a key component in creating integrated, seamless care in the continuum of services.
Researchers in Ontario have evaluated a new in-reach model of discharge planning, which delivers care to people leaving the hospital after an acute care mental health admission. Their work can be used to learn how to develop and implement a community-based discharge planning model. The findings will also be helpful for other acute care mental health services.
Evidence Exchange Network (EENet) has developed a Research Snapshotof the article, “An Evaluation of Community-Based Discharge Planning in Acute Mental Health Care,” by Elsabeth Jensen and others. It appeared in the Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health, vol. 29, no. 5: 111-24.
The Snapshot is available at www.ehealthontario.ca.
Research Snapshots are brief, clear language summaries of research articles, presented in a user-friendly format. To read EENet’s clear language summary of this article and others, visit the EENet website atwww.ehealthontario.ca.