Implementing Patient-Oriented Discharge Summaries (PODS): A Multisite Pilot Across Early Adopter Hospitals.

Communication gaps when patients transition from hospital to either home or community can be problematic. Partnership between Toronto Central Local Health Integration Network (TC LHIN) and OpenLab addressed this through the Patient-Oriented Discharge Summaries (PODS) project. From January through March 2015, eight hospital departments across Toronto came together to implement the PODS, a tool previously developed through a co-design process involving patients, caregivers and providers. This paper presents data on how the hospitals came together and the impact of PODS on the patient and provider experience across these hospitals and discusses it implications.