The third and final theme relates to improving the continuity of care across care settings. All respondents reported challenges in this area and opportunities for improvement, including requiring hospital emergency departments to contact a patient's therapist (when possible) and requesting therapists make themselves better known and available to hospitals (in the case of therapists who treat high‐risk patients). Respondents suggested that care continuity could and should also be strengthened by establishing better systems to track a patient after he/she has been discharged from the emergency department or an inpatient stay. Discharge planning in these cases typically involves a referral to another service setting for further care, but there are few systems and resources in place to track patient follow through (Knesper et al., 2011).
