Patient Guide

Discharge Checklist It is important you are involved in decisions about your discharge and understand priorities in your health care. Please make sure we have helped to answer the following: □ I understand where I am going after I leave the hospital and what will happen once I arrive. □ I have the name and phone number of a person I should contact if a problem should arise during my transfer. □ I understand what my medications are, how to obtain them and how to take them (especially if my medications have changed). □ I understand the potential side effects of my medication and whom I should call if I experience them. □ I understand what symptoms I need to watch out for and whom to call should I notice them. □ I understand how to keep my health from becoming worse. □ My doctor or nurse has answered my most important questions prior to leaving the hospital. □ My family or someone close to me knows that I am coming home and what I will need once I leave the hospital, including new dietary needs/plans and home care needs. □ If I am going directly home, I have scheduled a follow-up appointment with my doctor. I can help prevent coming back to the hospital by: • Knowing what I need to do before and after I leave the hospital. • Being sure to communicate with my primary care provider and tell them I was hospitalized. • Avoiding people who are sick. • Washing my hands often (asking those around me to wash their hands often too). • Taking care of my wounds or surgical site as I was instructed and checking for increasing redness, swelling, or increased drainage every day. Staff Recognition If there are members of your health care team that you would like to recognize for the care they provided, there are Shout-Out cards located at the elevators (and at the end of this guide). Our employees and physicians like to hear from you.

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