Improvement of Discharge Planning and Continuing Care for Vascular Surgery Patients: A Case Study

Abstract

Vascular surgery patients are prone to developing complications, which could result in high mortality risks. For this reason, such patients need to be treated in tertiary hospitals, where specialists and well-trained nurses play primary roles in planning their discharges and continuing care. It is necessary that the medical staff assess the patients’ conditions, provide them with proper care and plan their discharges with their family caregivers, to enable the patients to perform specifc self-care activities, such as caring for their surgical wounds or foot ischaemia, preventing disease-specifc risks and observing any abnormalities that would require urgent visits to the physicians. Without thorough planning and post-discharge follow-ups, the patients would have no reliable self-care consultants and could employ improper self-care methods, which
might result in escalating pain or even death.
     Improvement to discharge and continuing care planning is, therefore, of critical importance, as it leads to additional channels for post-discharge monitoring. Through these channels, nurses are able to advise the patients and address their self-care problems in a timely manner, thereby minimising negative effects on the patients. This study has helped the researcher build a better knowledge of common post-discharge self-care
problems, which could be applied to improving a more comprehensive self-care system for other patients.
     This article presents concepts related to nurses’ roles in discharge and continuing care planning, two important processes that could be contribute to positive outcomes in the treatment of vascular surgery patients.