Transitional Care After Hospitalization for Acute Stroke

or Myocardial Infarction: A Systematic Review

The American College of Physicians: 9/18/12

Transitional care is a time-limited service to prevent discontinuous care and adverse outcomes, including rehospitalization.

Purpose: To describe transitional care interventions and evidence of benefit or harm in patients hospitalized for acute stroke or myocardial infarction (MI).

Data Sources: Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, MEDLINE, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and EMBASE, supplemented with manual searches of reference lists of relevant studies and review articles (January 2000 to March 2012).

Study Selection: 6 reviewers screened 5857 citations to identify English-language reports of trials or observational studies that compared transitional care with usual care among adults hospitalized for stroke or MI and that reported patient, caregiver, process, or systems outcomes within 1 year of hospital discharge. Read more