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Electronic versus dictated hospital discharge summaries: a randomized controlled trial.

ABSTRACT: Patient care transitions are periods of enhanced risk. Discharge summaries have been used to communicate essential information between hospital-based physicians and primary care physicians (PCPs), and may reduce rates of adverse events after discharge.To assess PCP satisfaction with an electronic discharge summary (EDS) program as compared to conventional dictated discharge summaries.Cluster randomized trial.Four medical teams of an academic general medical service.The primary endpoint was overall discharge summary quality, as assessed by PCPs using a 100-point visual analogue scale. Other endpoints included housestaff satisfaction (using a 100-point scale), adverse outcomes after discharge (combined endpoint of emergency department visits, readmission, and death), and patient understanding of discharge details as measured by the Care Transition Model (CTM-3) score (ranging from 0 to 100).209 patient discharges were included over a 2-month period encompassing 1 housestaff rotation. Surveys were sent out for 188 of these patient discharges, and 119 were returned (63% response rate). No difference in PCP-reported overall quality was observed between the 2 methods (86.4 for EDS vs. 84.3 for dictation; P = 0.53). Housestaff found the EDS significantly easier to use than conventional dictation (86.5 for EDS vs. 49.2 for dictation; P = 0.03), but there was no difference in overall housestaff satisfaction. There was no difference between discharge methods for the combined endpoint for adverse outcomes (22 for EDS [21%] vs. 21 for dictation [20%]; P = 0.89), or for patient understanding of discharge details (CTM-3 score 80.3 for EDS vs. 81.3 for dictation; P = 0.81)An EDS program can be used by housestaff to more easily create hospital discharge summaries, and there was no difference in PCP satisfaction.

SUBMITTER: Maslove DM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2726886 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Electronic versus dictated hospital discharge summaries: a randomized controlled trial.

Maslove David M DM Leiter Richard E RE Griesman Joshua J Arnott Corinne C Mourad Ophyr O Chow Chi-Ming CM Bell Chaim M CM

Journal of general internal medicine 20090716 9

<h4>Background</h4>Patient care transitions are periods of enhanced risk. Discharge summaries have been used to communicate essential information between hospital-based physicians and primary care physicians (PCPs), and may reduce rates of adverse events after discharge.<h4>Objective</h4>To assess PCP satisfaction with an electronic discharge summary (EDS) program as compared to conventional dictated discharge summaries.<h4>Design</h4>Cluster randomized trial.<h4>Participants</h4>Four medical te ...[more]

PMID: 19609623

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Project description:Discharge summaries are a vital tool to communicate information from Hospital to Primary Care teams; updating GPs about what happened during an admission, and handing over care detailing any follow up care required. Historically, Discharge Summaries have been posted to hospitals, increasing costs for hospitals, creating administrative work for GP practices receiving the letters, and resulting in some letters being lost or delayed in reaching the GP, with implications for patient safety if follow up requests are not received and acted upon. In an effort to improve patient care, the Clinical Commissioning Group in Surrey drew up a contract with Ashford and St Peter's Foundation Trust, aiming to increase the percentage of discharge summaries sent electronically from the rate of 9% sent within 24 hours, to over 75%. This contract set targets of 50% in May, 65% in June, and 80% in July. Financial penalties would be imposed if targets were not achieved, starting in June 2013. The Trust set up a working group comprising of doctors, IT personnel and ward PAs to devise a multi-pronged solution to achieve this target. The electronic discharge summary system was reviewed and improvements were designed and developed to make the process of signing off letters easier, and transmission of signed off letters became automated rather than requiring manual transmission by ward PAs. Presentations and leaflets to explain the importance of prompt completion and transmission of discharge summaries were given to Doctors to improve compliance using the revised IT system. Figures on transmission rates were automatically emailed to key stakeholders every day (Ward PAs, Divisional Leads) showing performance on each ward. This helped identify areas requiring more intervention. Areas (e.g. Day Surgery) that had not used electronic discharge summaries were engaged with, and persuaded to take part. As a result, transmission rates of Discharge Summaries within 24 hours of patient discharge increased from 9% on May 11th 2013, to 76% by June 29th 2013. This has improved communication with GPs, led to more reliable handover of care, and reduced costs for the Trust (both in processing and postage costs, and by avoiding fines).

Project description:BackgroundObtaining accurate clinical information about recent acute care visits is extremely important for outpatient providers. However, documents used to communicate this information are often difficult to use. This puts patients at risk of adverse events. Elderly patients who are seen by more providers and have more care transitions are especially vulnerable.ObjectiveThis study aimed to (1) identify the information about elderly patients' recent acute care visits needed to coordinate their care, (2) use this information to assess discharge summaries, and (3) provide recommendations to help improve the quality of electronic health record (EHR)-generated discharge summaries, thereby increasing patient safety.MethodsA literature review, clinician interviews, and a survey of outpatient providers were used to identify and categorize data needed to coordinate care for recently discharged elderly patients. Based upon those data, 2 guidelines for creating useful discharge summaries were created. The new guidelines, along with 17 previously developed medical documentation usability heuristics, were applied to assess 4 simulated elderly patient discharge summaries.ResultsThe initial research effort yielded a list of 29 items that should always be included in elderly patient discharge summaries and a list of 7 "helpful, but not always necessary" items. Evaluation of 4 deidentified elderly patient discharge summaries revealed that none of the documents contained all 36 necessary items; between 14 and 18 were missing. The documents each had several other issues, and they differed significantly in organization, layout, and formatting.ConclusionsVariations in content and structure of discharge summaries in the United States make them unnecessarily difficult to use. Standardization would benefit both patients, by lowering the risk of care transition-related adverse events, and outpatient providers, by helping reduce frustration that can contribute to burnout. In the short term, acute care providers can help improve the quality of their discharge summaries by working with EHR vendors to follow recommendations based upon this study. Meanwhile, additional human factors work should determine the most effective way to organize and present information in discharge summaries, to facilitate effective standardization.

Project description:ObjectiveTo evaluate the effectiveness of unannounced versus announced surveys in detecting non-compliance with accreditation standards in public hospitals.DesignA nationwide cluster-randomized controlled trial.Setting and participantsAll public hospitals in Denmark were invited. Twenty-three hospitals (77%) (3 university hospitals, 5 psychiatric hospitals and 15 general hospitals) agreed to participate.InterventionTwelve hospitals were randomized to receive unannounced surveys (intervention group) and eleven hospitals to receive announced surveys (control group). We hypothesized that the hospitals receiving the unannounced surveys would reveal a higher degree of non-compliance with accreditation standards than the hospitals receiving announced surveys. Nine surveyors trained and employed by the Danish Institute for Quality and Accreditation in Healthcare (IKAS) were randomized into teams and conducted all surveys.Main outcome measureThe outcome was the surveyors' assessment of the hospitals' level of compliance with 113 performance indicators-an abbreviated set of the Danish Healthcare Quality Programme (DDKM) version 2, covering organizational standards, patient pathway standards and patient safety standards. Compliance with performance indicators was analyzed using binomial regression analysis with bootstrapped robust standard errors.ResultsIn all, 16 202 measurements were acceptable for data analysis. The risk of observing non-compliance with performance indicators for the intervention group compared with the control group was statistically insignificant (risk difference (RD) = -0.6 percentage points [-2.51-1.31], P = 0.54). A converged analysis of the six patient safety critical standards, requiring 100% compliance to gain accreditation status revealed no statistically significant difference (RD = -0.78 percentage points [-4.01-2.44], P = 0.99).ConclusionsUnannounced hospital surveys were not more effective than announced surveys in detecting quality problems in Danish hospitals.Trial registration numberClinicalTrials.gov NCT02348567, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02348567?term=NCT02348567.

Project description:Regulations, study design complexity and amounts of collected and shared data in clinical trials render efficient data handling procedures inevitable. Recent research suggests that electronic data capture can be key in this context but evidence is insufficient. This randomized controlled parallel group study tested the hypothesis that time efficiency is superior when electronic (eCRF) instead of paper case report forms (pCRF) are used for data collection. We additionally investigated predictors of time saving effects and data integrity.This study was conducted on top of a clinical weight loss trial performed at a clinical research facility over six months. All study nurses and patients participating in the clinical trial were eligible to participate and randomly allocated to enter cross-sectional data obtained during routine visits either through pCRF or eCRF. A balanced randomization list was generated before enrolment commenced. 90 and 30 records were gathered for the time that 27 patients and 2 study nurses required to report 2025 and 2037 field values, respectively. The primary hypothesis, that eCRF use is faster than pCRF use, was tested by a two-tailed t-test. Analysis of variance and covariance were used to evaluate predictors of entry performance. Data integrity was evaluated by descriptive statistics.All randomized patients were included in the study (eCRF group n =?13, pCRF group n =?14). eCRF, as compared to pCRF, data collection was associated with significant time savings across all conditions (8.29?±?5.15 min vs. 10.54?±?6.98 min, p =?.047). This effect was not defined by participant type, i.e. patients or study nurses (F(1,112) =?.15, p =?.699), CRF length (F(2,112) =?.49, p =?.609) or patient age (Beta?=?.09, p =?.534). Additional 5.16?±?2.83 min per CRF were saved with eCRFs due to data transcription redundancy when patients answered questionnaires directly in eCRFs. Data integrity was superior in the eCRF condition (0 versus 3 data entry errors).This is the first study to prove in direct comparison that using eCRFs instead of pCRFs increases time efficiency of data collection in clinical trials, irrespective of item quantity or patient age, and improves data quality.Clinical Trials NCT02649907 .

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Electronic versus dictated hospital discharge summaries: a randomized controlled trial.

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Electronic versus dictated hospital discharge summaries: a randomized controlled trial.

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