" (Meade, nd) The report of Meade states that: "it is clear the findings reveal that discharge follow-up phone calls provide an invaluable opportunity to evaluate patient education, identify trends that may require improvements in practice, improve patient quality of care, determine patient's compliance with discharge instructions and access overall impressions of hospital performance." (Meade, nd) In fact many of the studies show that discharge phone calls."..significantly increase patient satisfaction when compared to those not receiving discharge phone calls." (Ibid)

In the study of Ahrens, et al. (2003 in the work entitled: "Improving Family Communication at the End of Life: Implication for Length of Stay in the Intensive Care Unit and Resources Use" published in the American Journal of Critical Care 2003; 12(4): 317-232 evaluated is the "effect of a communication team had shorter ICU stays (6.1 vs. 9.5 days) and hospitals stays (11.3 vs. 16.4 days)" Further stated is that costs were lower ($15,559 vs. $24,080) and that variable costs are down as well $5,087 vs. $8,035.

In the work of Bjorklund and Fridlund entitled: "Cancer Patients Experiences of Nurse's Behavior and Health Promotion Activities: A Critical Incident Analysis" states that: "Personal consideration and the nurses' cognizance, knowledge, competence, solicitude, demeanor and statements of understanding were found to be important. Continuous health promotion nursing interventions were of considerable value for the majority of this group of cancer patients. Oncology nurses could reconfirm and update the care of head and neck cancer patients by including health promotion activities in individual care plans. By more frequent use of health promotion models, such as the empowerment model, the nurses could identify and focus on those individuals who needed to alter their life-style as well as tailor their approach towards these patients by setting goals for well-being and a healthy life-style." (Bjorklund and Fridlund, 1999)

DESIGN AND SAMPLING

The research conducted within the scope of this work is one of a qualitative review which will be conducted through a qualitative review of the literature to determine the validity of the hypothesis of this work.

The follow-up post-discharge telephone interview is clearly an effective method of assuring that the patient comprehends the instructions provided at discharge and that the patient has the optimal chance for attaining self-care and thereby maintaining their health such as is described in the nursing model of Orem.
Bibliography

Orem Theory of Nursing (2006) Wikipedia Online available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orem_model_of_nursing

Banfield, Barbara E. (1997) A Philosophical Enquiry of Orem's Self-Care Deficit Nursing Theory. UMI ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Online available at http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/preview_all/9815271

Mayo, Ann (nd) Orem's Self-Care Model: A Professional Nursing Practice Model. Online available at http://members.aol.com/annmrn/nursing_portfolio_I_index.html

Value of Technology to transfer Discharge Information (2005) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Jan 2005. Online ClinicalTrials.gov located at http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct/show/NCT00101868?order=2.

Meade, Christine Meade, PhD (nd) A Meta-Analysis: Researching Supporting Discharge Phone Calls to Hospital Patients Online available at http://www.studergroup.com/content/ahc_research/associated_files/DischargeAHCR_SG.pdf.

Ahrens, et al. (2003) "Improving Family Communication at the End of Life: Implication for Length of Stay in the Intensive Care Unit and Resources Use published in the American Journal of Critical Care 2003; 12(4)).

Bjorklund and Fridlund (1999) Cancer patients' experiences of nurses' behavior and health promotion activities: a critical incident analysis" European Journal of Cancer Care. Vol. 8,-Page 204 December 1999.

Patient's Perception on Discharge Based on Orem's Theory