Medical Readiness for Discharge
An inpatient is considered "medically ready" for discharge when the primary provider discipline (referred to as "medical" for simplicity) for an inpatient encounter has completed its clinical tasks and the patient is dischargeable from a "medical" perspective. Other needs (e.g., further mobility promotion, destination facility readiness, community home care readiness) may require more time to be spent in the current hospital. Accordingly, the expected discharge date may differ from the medical readiness date.
There is no precise definition for Medical Readiness ("Ready"), since facility, service, ward and patient factors determine Readiness for specific patients cared for in specific contexts. A tertiary care hospital organ transplantation service, for example, may declare a patient Ready for transition to a different level of care (and, possibly, facility) at a higher level of patient complexity and acuity than a community hospitalist service managing a common presentation.
Typically, a patient's level of care is changed from "Acute" to "Alternate Level of Care" once the patient is medically ready for discharge (see Alternate Level of Care).
Connect Care provides discharge planning tools that track Readiness. Planning for straightforward discharge needs can be facilitated with a simple medical readiness tool. Planning for more complex needs is best done with a multidisciplinary readiness tool. The latter facilitates tracking Readiness determinations for more than one collaborating healthcare discipline.
Simple Medical Readiness
The Expected Date of Discharge editing tool is enhanced (March 2025) to include a binary button ("Ready Now", "Not Yet Ready") that is used to indicate whether a patient is medically ready for discharge. The date of determination is automatically recorded. The focus is on "medical readiness" (primary hospital service has completed tasks and patient would be dischargeable from that service, even though other disciplines may need to complete work to enable a safe discharge). Nursing and allied health readiness is followed through discharge milestone indicators.
Complex Medical Readiness
A multidisciplinary discharge readiness planning tool can be accessed from within the Rapid Rounds List (double-click on the Overall Readiness column "traffic light" symbol), Rapid Rounds Report (click on the "discharge readiness" section text) or inpatient chart sidebar transition plan (again, click on the "discharge readiness" section text).
A pop-up tool facilitates simultaneous awareness of medical readiness, nursing and allied health readiness and attainment of the mobility target needed for discharge. It also provides indicators of mismatches between medical readiness and level of care, with quick-links for bringing these attributes into allignment.