Patients are at high risk of experiencing medical errors and harm during handovers in care, when responsibilities for patient care are being transferred from one individual or team to another. A handover of special concern is when patients are transferred from one care setting or facility to another, a period in time known as a care transition. Perhaps the most well-studied, and riskiest, care transition is the time when a patient leaves an inpatient hospital or other facility to go home. This report from the American Medical Association titled, "There and Home Again, Safely: 5 Responsibilities of Ambulatory Practices in High Quality Care Transitions," aims to improve the safety of care transitions across the entire continuum of care by focusing particular attention on a relatively neglected aspect of care transitions: the appropriate roles and responsibilities of ambulatory practices (i.e., outpatient clinics and other similar settings) in ensuring the safety of patients transitioning in and out of inpatient settings. Patients moving to and from the hospital, often coming from and going back to their homes, are, in effect, experiencing a care transition out of, and then back into, an ambulatory setting.
