Discharge Navigator
The Discharge navigator must be used to discharge all patients from hospital to home or a community care program (non-facility). All activities needed for a safe and complete discharge can be accessed from the Discharge navigator, both simplifying prescriber work and ensuring that orders, medication reconciliation, documentation and follow-up tasks are coordinated.
The most important steps, in order, include the following:
Review
Check any recent test results that may not have been reviewed and note any with results not yet reported that will require follow-up.
Reconcile the patient’s problem list by marking hospital problems resolved during the admission and others that may continue as active issues for follow-up.
Action
Consider post-admission community support needs which may affect needed orders (e.g., home care) or follow-up arrangements.
Clean up the patient’s orders to make subsequent medication reconciliation and discharge ordering easier.
Place discharge orders by indicating which home and hospital medications to continue and adding any new medication, referral or outpatient testing orders.
Documentation
Consider any patient instructions (e.g., appointment particulars) or education supports (e.g., medication, disease or procedure guides) to include in the After Visit Summary.
Prepare a Discharge Summary note.
There are four sub-navigator options available in the Discharge navigator; only one should be used to discharge a patient.
Discharge – For patients who are being discharged from hospital, to home or to community care. Note that this includes sending to a Supportive Living (SL) or Designated Supportive Living (DSL) facility, as such a destination facility is considered the patient's home.
Interfacility Transfer (IFT) – For patients who will be discharged and admitted to another facility, either to a facility with or without Connect Care pharmacy services.
Discharge as Deceased – Used to document the date/time/cause of death and organ donation information.
Leave of Absence (LOA) – For patients who will be temporarily away from the unit, but will be returning (e.g., patient on a pass).
Similar to the Admission Navigator, it is important to complete all sections. Failing to do so will prevent completion of the workflow. Doing so in the indicated order will save time when later steps (e.g., discharge summary) take advantage of information entered in earlier steps (e.g., medicatation reconciliation).