Trial reportCirculation. Cardiovascular quality and outcomes2015
Hospital variation in quality of discharge summaries for patients hospitalized with heart failure exacerbation.
Trial report in Circulation. Cardiovascular quality and outcomes, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed.
- Do Non-Clinical Factors Improve Prediction of Readmission Risk?: Results From the Tele-HF Study.JACC. Heart failure · 2016Trial
- Association of discharge summary quality with readmission risk for patients hospitalized with heart failure exacerbation.Circulation. Cardiovascular quality and outcomes · 2015Trial
- Optimizing Discharge Summaries: A Survey of Inpatient Clinician Perspectives and the Path to Standardization.Journal of general internal medicine · 2026Article
- Diagnosis decoded: a taxonomy and natural language processing analysis of the diagnosis section in German hospital discharge summaries.Health care management science · 2025Article
- Streamlining Patient Transitions: A Surgical Discharge Card Initiative at Almanagil Teaching Hospital.Cureus · 2025Article
- What do readers need? Qualitative requirements of medical discharge summaries from the recipients' perspective.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2025Article
- Platform-Based Patient-Clinician Digital Health Interventions for Care Transitions: Protocol for a Scoping Review.JMIR research protocols · 2023Article
- Protocol for a scoping review of patient-clinician digital health interventions for the population with hip fracture.BMJ open · 2022Article
- The diagnostic certainty levels of junior clinicians: A retrospective cohort study.Health information management : journal of the Health Information Management Association of Australia · 2022Article
- Hospital Discharge Summaries Are Insufficient Following ICU Stays: A Qualitative Study.Critical care explorations · 2022Article
- Quality of ICU Discharge Summaries Produced by Pediatric Residents: The Memorial Health University Medical Center Experience.HCA healthcare journal of medicine · 2022Article
- Lack of recognition and documentation of stress hyperglycemia is a disruptor of optimal continuity of care.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Is the routine health information system ready to support the planned national health insurance scheme in South Africa?Health policy and planning · 2021Article
- How to develop a national heart failure clinics network: a consensus document of the Hellenic Heart Failure Association.ESC heart failure · 2020Review
- Investigating discharge communication for chronic disease patients in three hospitals in India.PloS one · 2020Article
- Patient experiences using a novel tool to improve care transitions in patients with heart failure: a qualitative analysis.BMJ open · 2019Article
- Feasibility and performance of a patient-oriented discharge instruction tool for heart failure.BMJ open quality · 2019Article
- Discharge Processes and 30-Day Readmission Rates of Patients Hospitalized for Heart Failure on General Medicine and Cardiology Services.The American journal of cardiology · 2018Article
- Residents' Exposure to Educational Experiences in Facilitating Hospital Discharges.Journal of graduate medical education · 2017Article
- Skilled Nursing Facility Care for Patients With Heart Failure: Can We Make It "Heart Failure Ready?"Journal of cardiac failure · 2016Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSingle-site studies have demonstrated inadequate quality of discharge summaries in timeliness, transmission, and content, potentially contributing to adverse outcomes. However, degree of hospital-level variation in discharge summary quality for patients hospitalized with heart failure (HF) is uncertain. METHODS AND
resultsWe analyzed discharge summaries of patients enrolled in the Telemonitoring to Improve Heart Failure Outcomes (Tele-HF) study. We assessed hospital-level performance on timeliness (fraction of summaries completed on the day of discharge), documented transmission to the follow-up physician, and content (presence of components suggested by the Transitions of Care Consensus Conference). We obtained 1501 discharge summaries from 1640 (91.5%) patients discharged alive from 46 hospitals. Among hospitals contributing ≥ 10 summaries, the median hospital dictated 69.2% of discharge summaries on the day of discharge (range, 0.0%-98.0%; P<0.001); documented transmission of 33.3% of summaries to the follow-up physician (range, 0.0%-75.7%; P<0.001); and included 3.6 of 7 Transitions of Care Consensus Conference elements (range, 2.9-4.5; P<0.001). Hospital course was typically included (97.2%), but summaries were less likely to include discharge condition (30.7%), discharge volume status (16.0%), or discharge weight (15.7%). No discharge summary included all 7 Transitions of Care Consensus Conference-endorsed content elements, was dictated on the day of discharge, and was sent to a follow-up physician.
conclusionsEven at the highest performing hospital, discharge summary quality is insufficient in terms of timeliness, transmission, and content. Improvements in all aspects of discharge summary quality are necessary to enable the discharge summary to serve as an effective transitional care tool.
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