Care process and satisfaction analysis of a transmural home care program

Abstract 

This study investigated both professional caregiver workload as well as the patients’ and caregivers’ satisfaction with a transmural home care program. Seventy-nine patients were included in the intervention program. The specialist nurse coordinator, general practitioner, community nurse providing ‘intensive’ community care, community nurses providing ‘standard’ community care, and the home helper spent in total an average of 7.5, 4.4, 55.6, 55.0, and 112.3 h, respectively, on each patient during the care process (mean survival of the 79 patients was 101.2 days). The 24 h telephone service and transmural home team were contacted in total 100 and 8 times, respectively. Patient and caregiver satisfaction with the care provided scored (very) high. Considering this acceptable workload and given that the program did not interfere with existing standard health care structures, it can be concluded that such care may easily be introduced by other hospitals and related primary care teams.

Keywords:  Terminal care, Palliative care, Communication, Coordination, Home care services, Homenursing, Care process analysis