Transitional care programs in Canada for older adults transitioning from hospital to home: protocol for a systematic review of text and opinion

Objective:The objective of this systematic review is to identify what transitional care programs exist across Canada, including the characteristics and outcomes of these programs.Introduction: There is growing evidence of the benefits of transitional care programs to support older adults moving from hospital to home. However, there is limited literature identifying the types of transitional care programs that exist internationally and little evidence available within Canada.Inclusion criteria: Sources of gray literature published from 2016 that focus on older adults receiving services from transitional care programs to move from hospital to home in Canada will be considered for inclusion. Sources of gray literature will be excluded if interventions are targeted at adults younger than 65 years, Indigenous adults younger than 55 years, or if the primary discharge destination is not an independent community dwelling. Interventions designed for older adults waiting in hospital for long-term care placement will also be excluded from this review.Methods: An initial limited search of Canadian national gray literature resources will be undertaken, followed by an advanced Google search of Canadian resources and news media reports. Lastly, an advanced search of Google for all 10 provinces and 3 territories will be undertaken to target examples of local transitional care programs that may not be found through a national search, such as local pilot projects, health region-specific programs, and provincial organizations. All identified sources will be retrieved and full text review of selected citations assessed in detail by 2 independent reviewers. Data about the characteristics and outcomes of transitional care programs and results will be extracted and synthesized, with a meta-aggregation approach for grading according to JBI ConQual method.