Discharge Planning, Transitional Care, Coordination of Care, and Continuity of Care: Clarifying Concepts and Terms from the Hospital Perspective

The purpose of this paper is to review the use of terms and defini tions of key groups and literature reviews that have synthesized the content in this field and applied it to regulatory, accrediting, best practice recommendations, and quality of care determinations. We then (a) compare terms and definitions as they have been applied to inpatient, hospital based perspectives, and (b) propose a framework to facilitate consistent use of these concepts within the context of quality healthcare outcomes.