Understanding is Key to Staying Out of the Hospital - Part II

Monday’s Blog discussed how many Medicare patients end up being readmitted to the hospital in part due to lack of understanding of follow-up care.

Another recent study by the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, found 78% of patients do not fully understand their discharge instructions before leaving the emergency department. To make matters worse, they found that 80% of the time patients were not even aware they did not understand their discharge instructions.

Kirsten Engel, M.D., lead study author and instructor of emergency medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine said, “Patients who fail to follow discharge instructions may have a greater likelihood of complications after leaving the emergency department.”

The study assessed 138 patients from Anne Arbor, Michigan according to four categories of comprehension (diagnosis and cause, emergency department care, post-emergency department care and return instructions.) Fifty-one percent did not fully understand what they were told in 2 or more categories.

According to Engle, “The bottom line is that we need better strategies for identifying patients who are having difficulty understanding their care instructions in the emergency department… When you are in the emergency department, be honest and don’t be afraid to ask questions.”

It turns out understanding what you should do at home after leaving a doctor’s care is important for your recovery. Yet many patients do not fully understand their post-hospital care instructions and are not even aware of their misunderstanding.

As far as we know the study did not account for language difficulties so we assume the study participants were English speakers. Imagine what the study would find for Non-English speakers…

By Sherry Dineen

This study was published online in July of 2008 by the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
www.annemergmed.com/