Discharge Partnerships with Community-Based Organizations for Patients with Substance Use Disorders: How Much Do Physicians Know?

Excerpt

Patients experiencing homelessness and substance use disorders (SUDs) often experience multiple medical, economic, and social hardships,^{1, 2} requiring multidisciplinary efforts to determine appropriate hospital discharge disposition. Hospitals and community-based organizations (CBOs) are increasingly developing partnerships for the treatment of SUDs, which may include residential treatment for patients experiencing homelessness. Though an interdisciplinary team is necessary for these transitions, physicians are often on the front lines of screening for appropriateness and ensuring patient safety. Our institution’s internal medicine (IM) residents and hospitalists provided feedback that they frequently felt unprepared to do this because of poor understanding of CBO resources and criteria. While published best practices identify physicians as stakeholders for hospital-CBO partnerships, they do not focus on how to involve physicians nor address the challenges that physicians may face during these care transitions.³ A literature review revealed no studies regarding physician knowledge or perceptions of hospital-CBO partnerships. We performed a survey to assess provider knowledge and perceptions in response to this feedback and literature gap, and in alignment with our institution’s True North metrics of advancing patient safety and physician satisfaction. …