Effects of the Implementation of a Patient-Oriented Discharge Summary (PODS) on Pre- and Postdischarge Outcomes

A patient-oriented discharge summary (PODS) is a patient-facing process to provide best practices in discharge planning. The PODS process was implemented in phases in 22 units of a large, publicly funded psychiatric hospital in Canada. The authors studied 7,624 discharges. Sustained implementation of the PODS process attained an ongoing PODS completion rate of 86.5%. Rates of medication reconciliation, patient-centered medication education, follow-up appointment scheduling, and medical discharge summary completion within 48 hours of discharge significantly improved over the implementation phase. Despite high uptakes of these best practices, more distal outcomes (e.g., follow-up appointment attendance and hospital readmission) did not improve.