Featured Expert:
Johns Hopkins geriatrician Alicia Arbaje recaps findings from two bodies of work that address transitions of care for older adults from hospital to home health services. She describes the development of the Hospital-to-Home-Health Transition Quality (H3TQ) Index and research performed to validate the tool. The H3TQ Index measures care transition quality specific to hospital to home health transition. In testing this tool, Arbaje and colleagues found that the majority of care transitions from the hospital to the home involve safety issues that are not addressed before discharge — despite efforts to do so. The quality of care transitions still needs work, and the H3TQ Index can help identify issues that should be targeted. The plan is to make the tool available to researchers and health care systems interested in improving transitions of care quality.