Preventing avoidable hospital admissions and optimizing care transitions in nursing home residents

Due to population ageing and less availability of informal caregivers, an increasing number of older people spend the last years of their life in nursing homes (NH), where quality of care has been a long-lasting concern. Negative outcomes, such as falls, restraint use andpressure ulcers are common, because of the complex profile of residents, shortage of qualified professionals and poor working conditions. This leads to a high number of avoidable hospital admissions. MANTIS aims to strengthen the evidence-base regarding the prevention of avoidable hospital admissions in NH residents and the optimization of care transitions when hospitalizations cannot be avoided. It specifically aims to 1) develop a comprehensive understanding of the relationships among various NH and care giver characteristics and resident outcomes, 2) determine the characteristics of NH residents admitted to the hospital and the reasons and characteristics of the hospitalization, 3) evaluate the definition of avoidable hospitalisations for use in the NH context, 4) evaluate the quality of care transitions and exploring the NH residents’ and care workers’ experiences, and 5) develop a set of evidence-based quality indicators for transitional care of NH residents.

Keywords:nursing home, transitional care

Disciplines:Geriatrics, Geriatric nursing