There are no national, empirically derived clinical decision support tools to assist the interprofessional home health team in determining readiness for discharge from skilled home health. Eliciting patient and family caregiver perspectives around readiness for home health discharge is integral to developing tools that address their needs in this decision-making process. The purpose of this study was to describe the factors home health patients and their family caregivers perceive as critical when determining readiness for discharge from services. A qualitative descriptive study was conducted among skilled home health recipients and their family caregivers who were either recently discharged or recertified for additional care from two different Medicare-certified skilled home health agencies. Nine themes emerged: self-care ability, functional status, status of condition(s) and symptoms, presence of a caregiver, support for the caregiver, connection to community resources/support, safety needs of the home environment addressed, adherence to the prescribed regimen, and care coordination.
Keywords: Home health; clinical decision support; discharge readiness; home care; patient/caregiver perspective; qualitative descriptive; qualitative interviews.
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