Does discharge planning improve the process of patient care?
Comparison 1. Effect of discharge planning on length of stay in hospital compared to usual care.
We failed to detect a statistically significant difference between groups from a pooled analysis for hospital length of stay of elderly patients with a medical condition (weighted mean difference -0.86, 95%CI-1.9to0.18) [Kennedy;Moher;Naughton; Naylor; Sulch]. Trials not included in the pooled analysis did not report a significant difference in length of stay for surgical patients (differ-ence +1.0 day, 95% CI -2.0 to 4.0) [Naylor], or for a mixed group of patients recovering from surgery or with a medical condition (difference -3.3 days, p>0.05 [Hendriksen]; difference -0.6, 95% CI-2.38to1.18[Evans]).Onlyonetrial[Parfrey],recruitingfrom two hospitals, reported a small significant reduction in length of stay for patients receiving discharge planning in one hospital only (median difference - 0.8 days, p