#IDCS2024 UN International Day of Care and Support. Let's talk about supporting family caregivers when the person they care for is in the hospital! Why? 1. Family caregivers know the patient best and can provide information about the patient and assist with care. 2. Family Caregivers Provide Medical/ Nursing Care after Discharge 3. Gaps in Family Caregiver Preparation Affect Multiple Stakeholders --At home, lack of family caregiver preparation can lead to complications and hospital readmission --when a complication becomes a medical emergency. It can even trigger a cascade to dependency and nursing home placement. --For hospitals, lack of family caregiver preparation can lead to discharge delays, costly post-discharge emergency department visits, and readmissions— affecting hospital processes, workflows, and financial health. Integrating family caregiver support into hospital care typically requires a paradigm shift for front-line staff from simply documenting emergency contact information and providing discharge paperwork to consistently identifying, preparing, and instructing the person who will provide care at home after discharge. In the US, the Caregiver Advise, Record, Enable (CARE) Act is now law in more than 40 states and territories. It mandates a partnership with family caregivers. Hospital staff need to ask the patient if they have a caregiver, record the caregiver's name on the chart, advise the caregiver of transitions and discharges, and ensure the caregiver is prepared to care on discharge. Read more: APPROACHES TO MAKING PRACTICE AND SYSTEM CHANGES TO IMPROVE PATIENT AND FAMILY ENGAGEMENT: 12 WAYS HOSPITALS INTEGRATE FAMILY CAREGIVER SUPPORT https://lnkd.in/gxbjXi22
Chief Executive at International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC)
Tomorrow is the UN International Day of Care and Support #IDCS2024. At the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC), we have always acknowledged that central role that carers, specifically informal and family carers, play in care integration. Without carers, for many people #coordination of care simply does not happen. During our International Conference on Integrated Care 2023 #ICIC23 in Belfast this year, our Director of Communications Fiona Lyne chaired a panel discussion with Pat Grogan from Family Carers Ireland, Richard Meade from Carers Scotland, Sharon Anderson who is a Canadian researcher leading a program on care-giver centred care, and Guilia Lanfredi from Eurocarers. The discussion highlighted the carers experience of poor, indeed absent, involvement in care planning by the formal care sector specifically healthcare and the impact this has on carers and people they are caring for world-wide. On the International Day of Care and Support, the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) would like to spotlight the essential role of the informal, and usually unpaid, carer in #coordination and #continuity of care. They are the invisible thread that holds care together. As Sharon Anderson pointed out in Belfast, family carers are expected to be on call 24/7. Watch her video if you have time for nothing else from 44:30...... Time for us all to work to make this visible and valued by making sure carers are in ALL care conversations. https://lnkd.in/exws2wTm