Discharge planning, as currently practiced, often fails to create smooth transitions. The health care system does not sufficiently recognize the role of family caregivers. Patients from diverse backgrounds have different needs and circumstances. Barriers to Serving Family Caregivers Hospitals lack the time and financial resources necessary to address caregivers' needs. In their focus on the patient' clinical condition, health care providers often overlook the caregiver.
Information systems fail to collect and share facts about the social and emotional aspects of care.
Language, cultural, and educational differences can create challenges when families and health care professionals come from different backgrounds. Families' emotional responses to illness can make it challenging for hospital staff to provide support in a meaningful way. These applications suggest that, at least at some administrative and clinical levels, professionals want to do better, and recognize the substantial barriers to improvement that they face. The following recommendations for change are a beginning. They are not so grandiose that they depend on vast changes in the American political or economic system nor so trivial that they accomplish little more than a token bow to family caregivers.