ArticleBJGP open2019
Processing discharge summaries in general practice: a qualitative interview study with GPs and practice managers.
Article in BJGP open, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A Systematic Review of the Markers of Severity in Acute Respiratory Infections to Inform Primary Care Surveillance.Influenza and other respiratory viruses · 2025Pooled it
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- Implementation of a complex intervention to improve hospital discharge: process evaluation of a cluster randomised controlled trial.BMJ open · 2021Trial
- Follow-up pathways, investigation utilisation, and general practitioner communication following acute medical unit assessment: A six-month retrospective service evaluation.Irish journal of medical science · 2026Article
- Pilot of a novel patient-led intervention for postdischarge from hospital management of older patients' care in general practice.Family medicine and community health · 2026Article
- Diagnosis decoded: a taxonomy and natural language processing analysis of the diagnosis section in German hospital discharge summaries.Health care management science · 2025Article
- One template does not fit all: where next to improve hospital discharge communication to primary care?Primary health care research & development · 2025Article
- Safety issues in post-discharge care of older patients in general practice: an ethnographic study.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2025Article
- Do marked discharge summaries with recommendation text boxes enhance patient safety? A nationwide survey.BJGP open · 2025Article
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- Improving discharge summaries from hospital with a brief recommendation text box: results from a nationwide survey.BJGP open · 2024Article
- General practice management after transition events: protocol for an experience-based co-design study.BJGP open · 2024Article
- Hospital doctors' and general practitioners' perspectives of outpatient discharge processes in Australia: an interpretive approach.BMC health services research · 2023Article
- Clinical pharmacist intervention to improve medication safety for hip fracture patients through secondary and primary care settings: a nonrandomised controlled trial.Journal of orthopaedic surgery and research · 2023Article
- Delirium is under-reported in discharge summaries and in hospital administrative systems: a systematic review.Delirium (Bielefeld, Germany) · 2023Article
- Article
- What makes a "successful" or "unsuccessful" discharge letter? Hospital clinician and General Practitioner assessments of the quality of discharge letters.BMC health services research · 2021Article
- Implementing post-discharge care following acute kidney injury in England: a single-centre qualitative evaluation.BMJ open · 2020Article
- Making hospital discharge safer for frail older patients.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2020Article
- Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDischarge summaries are essential for communicating patient information from secondary care to general practice on hospital discharge. Although there has been extensive research into their design and completion in secondary care, very little is known about primary care processing of these documents.
aimTo explore what general practice staff think are the factors associated with failure to respond to actions requested in discharge summaries and what practices do to mitigate this. DESIGN &
settingSemi-structured interviews were undertaken with primary care staff in three geographical regions of England.
methodInterviews with 10 practice managers and 10 GPs (one of each at each of the 10 practices) were undertaken to explore management of discharge summaries.
resultsFive themes emerged from the interviews. The 'secondary care factors' theme describes participants' perspectives on the design of summaries, which are inconsistent and often require improvement. The 'safety features of processing systems' theme focuses on document handling in primary care. A theme devoted to 'medicines reconciliation' followed. 'Error and harm as a result of faulty processing' is a theme describing 'human error' and other factors that participants believed contributed to failure to respond to requested actions. Finally, the 'strategies for safety improvement' theme describes initiatives to prevent failures of safer transitions of care.
conclusionCorrect processing of discharge summaries is essential to ensure patients experience a safe transition of care and not just a hospital discharge. Based on the interview findings, strategies to mitigate against faults in the processing of discharge summaries have been suggested to enhance safer transitions of care.
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