Helping patients back into the community

The Transitional Discharge Model was first developed in Canada by the Bridge to Discharge Project. The pilot study took place in 1993 on a long-term ward at Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital in Ontario. It was aimed at helping people move back into the community and is based on maintaining relationships while people settle back into the outside world. These relationships include both staff and service user involvement. Hospital inpatient staff continue to remain involved with the client until a therapeutic relationship is established with a community care team and peer support is provided by a former service user who has been successfully re-integrated into the community. A review of studies on the model has found that it allows more people to be discharged from hospital, leads to lower readmission rates and saves money.

Forchuk, Cheryl ... [et al] - Transitional discharge based on therapeutic relationships : state of the art Archives of Psychiatric Nursing April 2007, 21(2), 80-86