Implications for practice and research

• The study found that nurse-led early discharge planning programmes (DPPs) are effective in reducing hospital readmissions by 28%, hospital readmission lengths of stay by slightly more than 2 days and all-cause mortality by 30% compared to standard care defined as non-nurse led DPPs not initiated early.

• Nurse-led early DPPs may reduce total and readmission costs.

• Zhu and colleagues advise future researchers to standardise costs to permit meta-analyses of cost data. They also recommended future researchers to examine the effects of nurse-led early DPPs on patient quality of life and satisfaction with discharge planning.

Context

Zhu and colleagues explain that reducing hospital length of stay and readmissions are priorities …