Skip to main content
OpenTrials
Completed

NCT Number: NCT00670865

Automated Versus Conventional Hospital Discharge Summaries and Prescriptions

The purpose of this study is to determine whether a semi-automated electronic patient discharge summary program leads to increased community physician and housestaff satisfaction and patient outcomes as compared to conventional discharge reports.

Completed

Looking for future studies?

Notify Me

Key information

Conditions

Patient Discharge Continuity of Patient Care Hospital Information Systems Medical Records Systems, Computerized

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

St. Michael's Hospital

Toronto, Ontario, M5B 1W8, Canada

About this study

For patients hospitalized with an acute illness, the days following discharge constitute a critical period. Patients must adjust to changes in their medications, follow up with family doctors and other specialists and know what symptoms should prompt a return to hospital. The community physicians who follow them rely on information from their hospitalization to facilitate this transition, and provide continuity of care.

Communication between hospital and community physicians is essential to this process, and has traditionally been accomplished by a dictated discharge summary. Previous studies have shown that while dictated discharge summaries can be inaccurate, incomplete, or untimely, computer generated summaries are produced more quickly and accurately. Moreover, database-generated discharge summaries are preferred by physicians in the community.

We have designed a web-based computer program with quality assurance features that automatically generates timely discharge summaries. We aim to study this program over a 2 month period on our general medicine unit by means of a randomized controlled trial. Our hypothesis is that community physicians will prefer the computer generated summaries, over the standard dictated summaries. If effective, our system could be implemented more widely, and would stand to improve communication with community physicians, continuity of care, and patient safety.

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

  • Hospitalization on General Internal Medicine ward at St. Michael's Hospital

Exclusion criteria

  • Transfer to another service
  • Death during admission
  • Remains in hospital past dates specified in study protocol

Treatment and study plan

Electronic discharge summary system

Other

The customized electronic discharge summary program will be used to generate patient discharge summaries.

Primary outcomes

  1. Primary care physician satisfaction from satisfaction score assessment form with 100-mm visual analogue scale

    Time frame: Satisfaction score assessment form to be sent one week after patient's discharge from hospital. If form is not returned in 14 days, a reminder and second form will be sent.

Secondary outcomes

  1. St. Michael's Hospital housestaff satisfaction from satisfaction score assessment form with 100-mm visual analogue scale

    Time frame: Housestaff will fill out form upon completion of the rotation during which the study has been performed

  2. Completion of specialist outpatient workups at St. Michael's Hospital recommended during course of hospitalization

    Time frame: Within the first 30 days of patient's discharge from hospital

  3. Patient visits to Emergency Room at St. Michael's Hospital

    Time frame: Within the first 30 days after patient's discharge from hospital

  4. Patient/proxy care transition assessment through the use of the CTM-3.

    Time frame: Phone call made to patient or proxy one week after discharge. If patient/proxy is not reached, follow up calls will be made daily until patient/proxy is reached.

  5. Prescribing errors as assessed by comparing discharge summary to inpatient record

    Time frame: Upon discharge

  6. Patient readmissions to St. Michael's Hospital

    Time frame: Within 30 days of discharge

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

Unity Health Toronto

Other

Registry information

Official study title

Automated Versus Conventional Hospital Discharge Summaries and Prescriptions: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Important dates

Study start
2008
Primary completion
2008
Study completion
2008
First posted
May 2, 2008
Registry last updated
Apr 16, 2010

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

Related clinical trials

Published trials that share one or more normalized conditions with this study.