Quality assessment of discharge letters in a French university hospital

Abstract

The quality of discharge letters has been evaluated in order to initiate a process of improved communications between the hospital and general practitioners. From each of 37 volunteer clinical departments of a French university hospital, a random sample of 30 stays was selected among the hospitalisations for one year. The quality of discharge letters was assessed according to recipients’ needs and to French legislation. In total, 1,024 medical records were relevant and were analysed. This study showed deficiencies in management of discharge letters in the hospital. It constitutes the first step of a quality improvement process based on the awareness of concerned actors through information feedback and the follow‐up of specific indicators.

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

“…Our study found that outpatient physicians were not satisfied with the timeliness or the quality of current discharge summaries. Our findings are in agreement with previous studies demonstrating that discharge summaries were often not available to outpatient physicians 3,4 and were often of poor quality 5, 6…”

“…The discharge summary is a vital component of the transfer of information from the inpatient to the outpatient setting. Unfortunately, discharge summaries are often unavailable when follow‐up care occurs and often lack important content 3–6…”

The surgical discharge summary: a lack of substantial clinical information may affect the postop treatment of rectal cancer patients

“…Even small steps such as providing feedback might efficiently increase the awareness of what can be done better [24,25]. Regardless of how it is done, improvements in the precision, completeness, and reliability of data given in a discharge summary are necessary because these are the features that guarantee the understanding of subsequent therapy decisions, affect the quality of further medical care, and finally facilitate patient care for the doctor who treats the patient afterwards.…”

Promoting effective transitions of care at hospital discharge: A review of key issues for hospitalists

“…[21][22][23] At the time patients first follow up with their PCPs after hospitalization, discharge summaries have not yet arrived about 75% of the time, 22,24,25 restricting the PCPs' ability to provide adequate follow-up care in 24% of hospital follow-up visits, according to one study. 26 In another investigation, PCPs reported being unaware of 62% of the pending test results that returned after discharge, of which 37% were considered actionable.…”