Outpatient physicians' satisfaction with discharge summaries and perceived need for an electronic discharge summary

Abstract

BACKGROUNDDeficits in information transfer between inpatient and outpatient physicians are common and potentially dangerous.OBJECTIVETo evaluate satisfaction with current discharge summaries, perceptions of preventable adverse events related to suboptimal information transfer, and the perceived need for the electronic discharge summary we plan to design.DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS:Survey of Department of Medicine physicians with an outpatient practice.MEASUREMENTSSatisfaction with timeliness and quality of discharge summaries was assessed using a 5‐point Likert scale. Respondents estimated the number of patients with preventable adverse events related to suboptimal information transfer at discharge.RESULTSOf the 416 eligible respondents, 226 completed the survey (54%). Only 19% of the participants were satisfied or very satisfied with timeliness, and only 32% were satisfied or very satisfied with the quality of discharge summaries. Overall, 41% believed that at least 1 of their patients hospitalized in the previous 6 months had experienced a preventable adverse event related to poor transfer of information at discharge.CONCLUSIONSPhysicians were not satisfied with the timeliness or quality of discharge summaries. Physicians indicated that suboptimal transfer of information at hospital discharge contributed to preventable adverse events. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2006;1:317–320. © 2006 Society of Hospital Medicine.

Electronic Versus Dictated Hospital Discharge Summaries: a Randomized Controlled Trial

“…5,9 Community-based physicians have attributed more than onethird of post-discharge adverse events to poor transfer of information. 10 Earlier work suggests that compared to conventional discharge summaries, electronically created discharge summaries have a greater likelihood of being generated, are more accurate, are delivered faster than dictated summaries, and are preferred by community physicians. [11][12][13][14][15] In contrast, a recent study reveals that electronic discharge summaries often lack crucial information.…”

The Effect of Workload Reduction on the Quality of Residents’ Discharge Summaries

“…Improved communication between inpatient and primary care providers can prevent these errors and events 3 , and discharge summaries are key components of these information transfers. Deficiencies in the content, template or delivery of discharge summaries contribute to poor quality of care, poor follow-up, adverse events and medical error [4][5][6][7] . Interventions to improve the quality of discharge summaries have focused on the modernization of the production of the summaries 8 , standardization of content through didactic interventions 9 , templating or providing more explicit guidelines for use by residents 10 .…”

Transfer of care of postsurgical patients from hospital to the community setting: cross-sectional survey of primary care physicians

“…Previous studies have shown that ineffective communication is a common etiology for adverse events in transfer of care settings, and a lack of communication on discharge was an area of concern noted by primary care physicians in this study. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] In a study by Harel et al 15 examining discharge summaries for dialysis patients, a majority of respondents (62%) felt that the process of transferring relevant dialysis-specific patient information from the discharging hospital to the home dialysis unit was inadequate, and 76% of respondents were aware of at least one adverse event or near miss occurring in their patients, attributable to inadequate discharge communication. Similarly, in our study, uncertainty regarding the aspects of management of postsurgical patient care was an issue for 92% of respondents, and 62% of patients stated that such uncertainty had resulted in adverse patient events.…”