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Community Corner

Discharge Planning: Making a Safe & Successful Transition from Inpatient to Outpatient Care

Paul Wright and Lori Ashton will be speaking about the transition from inpatient to outpatient and how to craft an effective discharge plan.

Lori Ashton

Ashton graduated from Clemson University with a BA in Sociology in 2005 and completed an MSW program at UMD Baltimore in 2008 with a specialization in Mental Health. A majority of her work experience has been with Assertive Community Treatment Teams in Baltimore City and Montgomery County, MD. Currently Ashton works with Medstar Montgomery Medical Center as a discharge planner/case manager and has for the past 1.5 years. A discharge planner’s role is to help to make sure that one leaves the hospital safely and smoothly and gets the right care directly following that. Discharge planners collaborate with the psychiatrist, nurses and additional staff to create a discharge plan to meet the needs in the community.

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Paul Wright

In the middle of a career as a policy analyst with the federal government, Paul decided to earn a second master’s degree in social work. One of his internships was at Montgomery General Hospital. After graduating in 1999, Paul has continued to work part-time as a social worker and discharge planner in the inpatient unit of Medstar Montgomery Center in Olney.

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He continues in his federal job but is looking forward to full-time social work after his upcoming retirement. Paul particularly enjoys conducting family meetings with patients and their families or close friends. His particular professional interests are working with families going through a separation or divorce and patients with depression and/or suicidal ideations. He is a 34-year resident of Montgomery County. In his specialties, working with people using the Spanish that he learned while living in Costa Rica in Honduras in the 1970s.


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