Implementing Transitional Care Interventions for Surgical Patients: A Scoping Review

To synthesise the evidence on implementation strategies used to implement transitional care interventions for adult surgical patients.

Scoping review.

Medline, CINAHL and EMBASE were searched in August 2023 and updated June 2025, followed by citation searches. Studies were screened independently by two researchers, and one extracted data, another verified its accuracy. Studies about transitional care interventions for adult surgical patients were coded according to the 'Five classes of implementation strategies' and the 'Patterns, Advances, Gaps, Evidence for practice and Research recommendations' framework, to illuminate the review findings.

Based on 27 studies included in the scoping review, staff education, changes to staffing and electronic systems, and change management techniques were frequently used implementation strategies. Implementation strategies were mostly used with patients undergoing colorectal and cardiac surgery in Asia and the United States. Scale-up strategies and capacity-building initiatives for people in charge of spearheading the change initiatives were less common.

To further the field, future research could focus on capacity-building and scale-up strategies, fidelity reporting, and financial implications of implementation in a wider range of surgical populations and settings. Work is needed to effectively implement surgical transitional care interventions in real-world settings.

Our findings provide strategies for hospital leaders to adopt when implementing transitional care interventions for surgical patients.

Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist.

Determined review focus, interpreted findings, and contributed to manuscript.

The Open Science Framework.