The effect of workload reduction on the quality of residents' discharge summaries.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The completeness of hospital discharge summaries may reflect the overall quality of inter-professional communications. The effect of reducing resident workload on clinical performance is largely unknown.

Objective

We examined the impact of reducing housestaff workload on the quality of discharge summaries, an indicator of clinical performance, as compared to discharge summaries created by trainees on a team with a more typical workload.

Design

Patients admitted to a medicine service at a community teaching hospital affiliated with an academic medical center were alternately allocated between a control and intervention care team of residents. First-year residents on the intervention team carried an average census of 3.5 patients compared with 6.6 patients fo

SUBMITTER: Coit MH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3024111 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature