Abstract

The American College of Physicians, Society of Hospital Medicine, and Society of General Internal Medicine convened a multi-stakeholder consensus conference in July 2007 to address the quality gaps in the transitions between inpatient and outpatient settings and to develop consensus standards for these transitions. Over 30 organizations sent representatives to the Transitions of Care Consensus Conference. Participating organizations included medical specialty societies from internal medicine as well as family medicine and pediatrics, governmental agencies such as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, performance measure developers such as the National Committee for Quality Assurance and the American Medical Association Physician Consortium on Performance Improvement, nurse associations such as the Visiting Nurse Associations of America and Home Care and Hospice, pharmacist groups, and patient groups such as the Institute for Family-Centered Care. The Transitions of Care Consensus Conference made recommendations for standards concerning the transitions between inpatient and outpatient settings for future implementation. The American College of Physicians, Society of Hospital Medicine, Society of General Internal Medicine, American Geriatric Society, American College of Emergency Physicians, and Society for Academic Emergency Medicine all endorsed this document.