From ICU to General Wards: Person‑Centred and Safe Care Transitions for Older Adults Through Co‑Creation and a System Focus

This project aims to co-create and implement improved, person-centred, interprofessional ways of working with healthcare professionals, patients, and family members. The project focuses on strengthening the care transition of older patients from the intensive care unit to a hospital ward.

Through co-creation, clinical integration and continuous learning, the project will contribute to safer care transitions for older patients, improved teamwork and enhanced patient safety.

The project builds on the previous research project Improving Quality and Efficiency in Care Pathways, funded by the Family Kamprad Foundation. The present project will implement the findings from that study and engage stakeholders in co-creating person-centred, interprofessional and structured ways of working to improve transitions from intensive care to hospital wards.

Research questions

• RQ1: How can previously identified improvement proposals be put into practice and developed into sustainable ways of working in everyday clinical care?
• RQ2: How do healthcare professionals and organisations experience implementing standardised and person-centred ways of working during the transition of older patients from the intensive care unit to a hospital ward?
• RQ3: How can an interprofessional improvement forum support collaboration and shared learning between intensive care and hospital wards?
• RQ4: What effects do the implemented activities have on safety culture, teamwork, patient safety, and older patients’ experiences of safety and continuity of care?

The project uses a participatory, interactive research design and is organised interprofessionally, ensuring that those involved in older patients' care transitions are included. One intensive care unit and one or two hospital wards will test the revised ways of working.

The intensive care unit is characterised by high technological intensity, high staffing levels, rapid decision-making processes, and challenges related to patient involvement, depending on the patient’s health condition. Hospital wards, by contrast, generally provide a longer care trajectory in which patients are more likely to be actively involved in their care

Data from the two settings will be analysed both separately and comparatively to identify potential differences in the level of implementation, barriers, facilitators and the perceived benefits of the intervention.