What makes a "successful" or "unsuccessful" discharge letter? Hospital clinician and General Practitioner assessments of the quality of discharge letters.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Sharing information about hospital care with primary care in the form of a discharge summary is essential to patient safety. In the United Kingdom, although discharge summary targets on timeliness have been achieved, the quality of discharge summaries' content remains variable.

Methods

Mixed methods study in West Midlands, England with three parts: 1. General Practitioners (GPs) sampling discharge summaries they assessed to be "successful" or "unsuccessful" exemplars, 2. GPs commenting on the reasons for their letter assessment, and 3. surveying the hospital clinicians who wrote the sampled letters for their views. Letters were examined using content analysis; we coded 15 features (e.g. "diagnosis", "GP plan") based on relevant guidelines and standards. Free text

SUBMITTER: Weetman K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8048210 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature