7:15am – 8:00am

Conference Registration & Networking Breakfast

8:00am – 8:15am

Chairperson's Opening Remarks

8:15am – 9:00am

Day One Discharge Engagement: Why Early Planning Prevents Late-Stage Delays

Too often discharge planning begins only after clinical stabilization, yet research shows that setting and communicating an estimated discharge date (EDD) within the first 24 hours dramatically reduces length of stay and prevents avoidable delays. This session reframes discharge as a process that starts at admission, not as an endpoint. Explore why early engagement of patients and families enables better preparation for transitions, how visible discharge timelines align care teams around shared goals, and what distinguishes organizations achieving measurable LOS reductions through proactive planning.

9:00am – 9:45am

Estimated Discharge Date: Implementing the 24-Hour Standard Across Your Organization

Setting the EDD within 24 hours of admission is a powerful but underutilized tool for improving discharge efficiency. This session tackles the practical realities of making early EDD documentation a consistent practice including how to overcome physician hesitancy to commit to discharge dates when clinical conditions remain uncertain, strategies for integrating EDD entry into admission workflows and rounding templates, audit approaches that track EDD accuracy and identify systematic barriers causing delays, and methods for holding teams accountable while maintaining flexibility for legitimate clinical changes. Discover how successful hospitals standardize EDD practices, what happens when the target date becomes visible to everyone on the care team, and how this single intervention creates momentum for proactive discharge planning throughout the hospital stay.

9:45am – 10:15am

Networking & Refreshments Break

10:15am – 11:00am

Multidisciplinary Discharge Rounds: Structuring Team Communication for Results

When done well, multidisciplinary rounds dramatically improve discharge coordination by ensuring everyone knows the plan and their role in executing it. When done poorly, they waste time and create frustration. This session examines what makes discharge rounds effective:

• Optimal timing, frequency and duration for rounds that fit into busy clinical workflows without disrupting care delivery
• Essential participants including physicians, nurses, case managers, therapists, pharmacists and when to involve patients and families directly
• Structured agendas and visual tools that keep discussions focused on discharge readiness, barriers and action items rather than devolving into clinical updates
• Technology integration through EHR rounding dashboards, care boards and real-time data that makes discharge status visible to the entire team

11:00am – 11:45am

Bedside Whiteboards and Visual Communication: Low-Tech, High-Impact Discharge Tools

Despite the proliferation of expensive health IT systems, simple bedside whiteboards remain one of the most effective tools for discharge communication when used consistently. This session explores how to maximize the impact of visual communication at the bedside including standardized whiteboard templates that display EDD, daily goals, care team names and discharge barriers in patient-friendly language, training approaches that ensure nurses update boards daily and use them during patient interactions rather than letting them become stale decoration, patient and family engagement strategies that encourage questions and clarifications when the posted plan doesn't match expectations, and measurement tactics tracking whiteboard completion rates and correlating with patient satisfaction scores.

11:45am – 12:30pm

Navigating Medicare Advantage Preauthorization Challenges in Post-Acute Placement

Medicare Advantage penetration continues to grow, creating significant discharge bottlenecks as MA plans impose authorization requirements and coverage restrictions that traditional Medicare doesn't require. This session addresses the throughput crisis created by MA authorization delays including how preauthorization reviews impact ED boarding, extended length of stay and discharge timing, strategies for early identification of MA patients who will need post-acute placement to start authorization processes sooner, interdisciplinary workflows that involve physicians, case managers and utilization review in coordinated preauthorization efforts, and tactics for appealing denials and working with MA plan medical directors when patients need higher levels of care than initially authorized.

12:30pm – 1:30pm

Luncheon

1:30pm – 2:15pm

AI for Patient Flow Optimization: Real-Time Insights and Automated Interventions

Beyond predicting individual discharge needs, AI platforms are optimizing entire hospital patient flow through real-time data integration and automated interventions. This session examines AI applications for capacity management including dynamic bed assignment algorithms that optimize placement based on predicted length of stay, acuity and discharge timing, predictive analytics forecasting admission volume, discharge volume and capacity constraints hours or days in advance, automated alerts identifying discharge-ready patients, potential delays and opportunities to accelerate transitions, and resource optimization ensuring staff, equipment and post-acute services are allocated efficiently.

2:15pm – 3:15pm

Panel: Overcoming Common Discharge Barriers—Social Determinants, Transportation and Housing Instability

Discussion topics will include:

• Identifying patients with housing instability, food insecurity, lack of caregiver support or other social factors that complicate discharge planning
• Partnering with community organizations, shelters and social service agencies to create discharge options for patients without traditional home environments
• Coordinating transportation for patients who lack personal vehicles or family support, including medical transport, ride-sharing and public transit vouchers
• Addressing medication access challenges when patients lack insurance coverage or ability to afford prescriptions needed post-discharge
• Creative problem-solving when traditional post-acute placement options (SNF, LTAC, home health) aren't available or appropriate given social circumstances

3:15pm – 3:45pm

Networking & Refreshments Break

3:45pm – 4:30pm

Transfer Protocols and Care Transitions: New CMS Requirements and Best Practices

Effective July 2025, CMS finalized new Conditions of Participation requirements mandating written transfer protocols for acute care hospitals, codifying what many organizations already practice informally. This session clarifies the new regulations covering intra-hospital transfers from ED to inpatient units and between units, inter-hospital transfers for higher levels of care or specialized services, and annual staff training requirements for personnel involved in patient transfers. Learn strategies for documenting existing transfer practices to meet compliance standards, developing standardized handoff processes that ensure clinical information follows the patient, and measuring transfer quality including delays, communication gaps and adverse events that occur during transitions.

4:30pm – 5:15pm

Reducing Readmissions Through Proactive Discharge Planning and Post-Acute Coordination

Readmissions within 30 days cost hospitals millions in penalties while signaling gaps in discharge preparation and care transitions. Explore approaches for reducing readmissions through better discharge planning including comprehensive medication reconciliation and patient education about medications before discharge day, arranging timely follow-up appointments with primary care physicians or specialists before patients leave the hospital, providing clear written discharge instructions in plain language with teach-back methods to confirm understanding, and coordinating with home health agencies, SNFs and other post-acute providers to ensure seamless handoffs. You'll learn which discharge interventions have strongest evidence for readmission reduction and how to implement them systematically across your patient population.

5:15pm

End of Day One