Intermediate Care for Patient-Centered Care, Shared Decision Making, and Hospital Discharge Support in a Japanese Acute Care Hospital: A Cross-Sectional Study

[Background] Intermediate care is a limited-time service founded on patient-centered care (PCC) that ensures continuity and quality of care during the transition between home and acute care services, promotes recovery, and restores independence and confidence. In Japan, systematic education on intermediate care for care providers is lacking. [Method] The present study explored the relationship between a Japanese scale used to evaluate individualized discharge support skills, a Japanese version of a tool for evaluating intermediate care based on PCC, and a tool that measures the shared decision making of care providers, which is the pinnacle of PCC. [Results] Clear correlations were found between the concepts evaluated using these three tools. Some concepts were not correlated between the Japanese scale that evaluated individualized discharge support skills and intermediate care based on PCC. [Conclusions] Elucidating the perspectives that help expand discharge care to intermediate care based on PCC will contribute to future education on intermediate care for Japanese care providers and to enriching patient-centered intermediate care.