[Report to nurses about a patient admission. A specific method of coordination]

The need to have an adequate and efficient continuity regarding each patient's treatment is not questioned at present; however, this need, in many situations, continues to be a pending subject for the health care system in general and for different professional associations in particular. Nursing is not exempt from this problem and in fact there already have been instances of coordination which attempt to alleviate this problem such as through the emission of documents like the Nurses' Report for the Medical Release Certificate which allows professionals at both levels of attention, primary care and specialized, to maintain a set level of communication and information among themselves. Nevertheless, there still are no known instances about the establishment of a Report to Nurses Upon Admission of a Patient to a Unit; thus, we can state that an efficient two-way communication circuit has not yet been completed. The Report to Nurses Upon Admission of a Patient to a Unit is designed to be the method through which Specialized Care nurses obtain information about a patient who is admitted to their unit directly from the professional who has been caring for this patient until that moment, in other words, the Primary Health Care Unit nurse. As part of a ten year-old project to coordinate different health sections, this Report of Nurses Upon Admission of a Patient to a Unit is described in this article. This project has been implemented in Health Area Number 17 in the Valencia Autonomous Region. It is one of the methods which have been used to coordinate the relationship among nurses in primary health care centers and specialized units.