Review the discharge-readiness timeline for a client with a new colostomy and determine how the nurse should preserve continuity of care.
Trend
Choose your responses, then check the answer.
Explanation
Discharge readiness includes the client's ability to manage the plan and the availability of needed resources, not only stable vital signs. The client cannot yet perform pouch care, the home-health referral is pending, and supplies and transportation are unconfirmed. The nurse should involve the client as a full partner; coordinate with the wound or ostomy nurse, case manager, provider, pharmacy, and home-health team; use return demonstration and teach-back; and confirm supplies, medication understanding, warning signs, appointments, transportation, and contact information before discharge. Giving written instructions alone does not resolve the transition gap.
Trend to recognize The client is physiologically stable but the home-care plan is not executable. Skill, supplies, referral, and transportation gaps make the transition unsafe.
Continuity response Coordinate the people, skills, supplies, and follow-up before the client leaves; discharge planning is a process, not a final packet.
Readiness evidence Return demonstration, teach-back, confirmed supplies and referrals, scheduled follow-up, and a clear contact plan provide stronger evidence than a signed instruction sheet.
Why the alternatives fail Medical stability does not erase functional barriers. Telling a client who lives alone to ask family assumes unavailable support. Sending the client home while referrals are merely pending transfers system risk to the client.
Source
1AHRQ IDEAL Discharge Planning
22026 NCLEX-RN Test Plan
Transition planningA 68-year-old client lives alone and is preparing for discharge after creation of a colostomy. The client is medically stable, but self-care ability and home resources change during the stay.