# User Involvement in Transition Care in Virtual 4‐Party Meetings: A Qualitative Study

## TL;DR

This study explores how virtual meetings involving patients, families, and healthcare providers improve care transitions for older adults with multiple health conditions.

## Contribution

The study introduces a structured virtual meeting model that enhances user involvement and coordination in transitional care.

## Key findings

- Virtual 4-Party Meetings reduced care fragmentation and improved coordination through shared dialogue.
- The meetings fostered emotional safety and supported patient autonomy and relational understanding.
- Meaningful involvement required shared accountability between patients, relatives, and professionals.

## Abstract

Older adults with multimorbidity often experience fragmented transitional care between the hospital, primary care, and municipal services. Insufficient communication and limited user involvement can compromise safety, satisfaction, and continuity. To address these challenges, a structured cross‐sectoral intervention, the Virtual 4‐Party Meeting (V4M), was developed to enhance patient and family involvement in discharge planning.

To explore how older adults with multimorbidity and their relatives experienced involvement in transitional care through V4M.

A qualitative hermeneutic design was applied. Eleven patients ( + 65 years) and their relatives participated in semi‐structured interviews immediately after V4M and again 14 days post‐discharge. Data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic analysis within a Gadamerian hermeneutic framework.

Three themes emerged: (1) Bridges between Systems. V4M reduced fragmentation and improved coordination through shared dialog; (2) A Relational Space of Alignment, the meetings created emotional safety and supported patient autonomy and relational understanding; and (3) Involvement and Responsibility are deeply interconnected. Meaningful involvement occurred when accountability was shared between patients, relatives, and professionals.

V4M provided an effective model for integrating user involvement into transitional care by combining structural coordination with relational engagement. Patients and relatives felt acknowledged, informed, and reassured when professionals gained a clearer sense of shared responsibility. The study highlights that genuine user involvement depends on both emotional recognition and concrete accountability mechanisms across sectors.

Older adults with multimorbidity and their relatives contributed to the development of the V4M intervention. In this study, patients and relatives participated as interviewees but were not involved in data analysis or manuscript preparation.