Facilitators and barriers of care transitions - comparing the perspectives of hospital and community healthcare staff

As a patient moves from hospital back home to receive community-based care, quality of care and patient safety are often put at risk. This study aimed to analyse the discharge process to identify and compare the barriers and facilitators within the context of the system in which they occur, from the perspectives of both hospital and community healthcare staff. The results were derived from the analysis of 348 incident reports, the observation of five discharge planning meetings with hospital staff, three focus groups with hospital staff, and six focus groups with community healthcare staff. Five themes representative of the barriers and four themes representative of the facilitators for this process were identified from both hospital and community healthcare staff's perspective. These were then discussed in the context of the subsystem, hospital or community healthcare setting, in which they occur.