[Discharge and transfer management]

The demographic changes together with the increasingly shorter duration of hospital stays are leading to changes in the current health care systems. Not least due to statutory requirement for an assured access to post-hospital health care, the discharge or, respectively, medical transfer management accordingly represent an increasingly important component of hospital routine and should thus help to avoid health-care gaps in the post-hospital periods.A successful discharge management is characterised by the interdisciplinary cooperation of several professions. It is thus necessary to understand as such the issues at stake and the differing concepts. A successful discharge management ensures the success of surgical treatment and in the meantime has also emerged as a showcase for the respective department of hospital. In future it will only be possible to combine high quality medicine with economic interests and competitiveness with the help of a qualitatively high class discharge or, respectively, medical transfer management. The present article is intended to provide an overview of the possible concepts in the files of discharge/medical transfer management and also to illustrate the steps and structures necessary for the successful discharge of the patient.