Background: Large hospital systems receiving transfer from other facilities constantly experience bed shortage and need to have real time awareness of all its’ facilities capacity, capability, and services currently available. Our hospital system receives about 150 inter-hospital transfer requests daily and complete about 60 each day. We have a centralized transfer center where our Transfer [...]

Background: Interhospital transfer (IHT) processes vary across institutions. The fragmented and complex nature of IHTs pose patient safety risks. The implementation of a standardized IHT process with a templated note for hospital medicine patients at our institution demonstrated promising patient safety outcomes and a significant increase in physician satisfaction. A second, iterative intervention expanded this [...]

Background: Rapid Response Teams (RRTs), also known as medical emergency or patient response teams, are widely implemented in hospitals to improve patient outcomes. Existing literature demonstrates that RRTs reduce in-hospital mortality, cardiac arrest, and unplanned ICU admissions. However, less is known about the outcomes of patients transferred to the ICU following an RRT activation. At [...]

Background: Inter-hospital transfer (IHT) refers to the movement of patients between acute care hospitals and is a routine practice within healthcare systems. The process, however, remains unstandardized, resulting in variability in how patients are identified, managed, and transferred, as well as in patient outcomes, safety, and associated costs. While IHT typically provides specialized care unavailable [...]

Background: Interhospital transfers (IHT) for additional care are a necessary, if high-risk, part of the healthcare system. Return transfers, in which the patient is returned to the referring hospital once higher-level care is no longer needed, are also a part of the healthcare system but are even more varied and less systematized and studied within [...]

Background: Outside-hospital (OSH) transfers are crucial to providing patients with a higher level or more specialized care. Despite the intent to improve care, OSH transfers are associated with negative outcomes due to miscommunication, lack of information, and other factors affecting patient care. Currently, there is no widely standardized process for OSH transfers. Studies show that [...]