Background
During acute hospital admission, patients often experience loss of functional status. A low level of physical activity is associated with higher levels of loss of functional status. Stimulating physical activity to maintain functional status is considered essential nursing care. Function Focused Care is a promising approach stimulating physical activity. In a previous study, Function Focused Care in Hospital was deemed feasible.

Objective
To determine the effectiveness of Function Focused Care in Hospital compared with usual care on the functional status of hospitalized stroke and geriatric patients.

Design
A multicenter stepped wedge cluster trial.

Methods
A neurological and a geriatric ward of an academic hospital and a general hospital in the Netherlands participated in this study; each was considered a cluster in the trial. The primary outcome was patients' functional status over time, measured with the Barthel Index and Elderly Mobility Scale. Secondary outcomes were the patients' length of stay, fear of falling, self-efficacy, motivation, resilience, and outcome expectations for functional and exercise activities. Data was collected at hospital admission (baseline), day of discharge, and three and six months after discharge via patient files and questionnaires and analyzed with generalized linear mixed models.

Results
In total, we included 892 patients, of which 427 received Function Focused Care in Hospital and 465 received usual care. Although we did not find significant differences in the Barthel Index and Elderly Mobility Scale at discharge or follow-up, we found a significant decrease in the mean length of stay (− 3.3 days, 95 % CI − 5.3 to − 1.1) in favor of the Function Focused Care in Hospital group. In addition, in the Function Focused Care in Hospital group, a larger proportion of patients were discharged to home compared to the control group (38.2 % vs. 29.0 %, p = 0.017), who were discharged more often to a care facility.

Conclusion
The length of hospital stay was substantially decreased, and discharge to home was more common in the group receiving Function Focused Care in Hospital with equal levels of independence in Activities of Daily Living and mobility in both groups upon discharge. Although significant differences in the Barthel Index and Elderly Mobility Scale were not found, we observed that neurological and geriatric patients were discharged significantly earlier compared to the control group.