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When patients who are discharged from a hospital are readmitted, do the discharging and readmitting medical teams communicate with each other? To examine this issue, researchers at two Boston teaching hospitals surveyed residents and attending physicians about patients who required short-term readmission after being discharged from general medicine services.
Of 432 consecutive patients who were discharged and readmitted within the next 14 days, 123 had common providers on both teams, and 84 had planned readmissions; thus, 225 cases were analyzed. Discharging teams were aware that their patients had been readmitted in only 49% of cases, and communication occurred between teams in only 44% of cases. When communication did not occur, 61% of res…