ArticleBMJ open quality2022
Improving the quality and content of discharge summaries on acute medicine wards: a quality improvement project.
Article in BMJ open quality, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Implementing discharge summary documentation: a quality improvement initiative in a Nigerian hospital.BMJ open quality · 2026Article
- Acute medicine and the urgent care crisis: From pressure point to system solution.Future healthcare journal · 2026Article
- Continuity of care in UK primary care: a scoping review of measures, challenges, and future interventions.Primary health care research & development · 2026Article
- Article
- Inclusion of Diagnostic Imaging in Orthopaedic Discharge Summaries: A Quality Improvement Project.Cureus · 2025Article
- One template does not fit all: where next to improve hospital discharge communication to primary care?Primary health care research & development · 2025Article
- Article
- Medication information completeness in discharge summaries from a Norwegian rural hospital - a cross-sectional study.BMC health services research · 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
- Bridging Inpatient and Outpatient Care: A Scoping Review on Discharge Summary Documentation Timeliness and Quality.Journal of Brown hospital medicine · 2025Review
- Towards Inpatient Discharge Summary Automation via Large Language Models: A Multidimensional Evaluation with a HIPAA-Compliant Instance of GPT-4o and Clinical Expert Assessment.AMIA ... Annual Symposium proceedings. AMIA Symposium · 2024Article
- The Quality of Discharge Summaries at Al-Shaab Hospital, Sudan, in 2022: The First Cycle of a Clinical Audit.Cureus · 2023Article
- General practice management of COPD patients following acute exacerbations: a qualitative study.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2023Article
- The Quality of Discharge Summaries After Acute Kidney Injury.Canadian journal of kidney health and disease · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Discharge summaries are important medical documents that summarise a patient's hospital admission. The Royal College of Physicians provides standardised guidance on the content of discharge summaries, given their important role as a handover document to general practitioners (GPs). Our project started in June 2020 on an acute medical ward, where significant variation had been noted in the quality and content of discharge summaries. A multidisciplinary team (MDT) was formed including doctors, nurses and hospital/community pharmacists, as well as a patient representative, to ensure active patient co-design. The problem was scoped by asking GPs to provide feedback via surveys and process mapping. Our aim was to increase the compliance of discharge summaries with 10 core criteria from a baseline of 55% to 95% by June 2021. Change ideas were developed by the MDT and were tested using plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycles that included additional pharmacy support, a discharge summary template and individualised feedback. The project reached its goal of 95% compliance in January 2021, 5 months ahead of the target date, and this improvement has been sustained since. The project expanded to a second acute medical unit ward in May 2021. The expanded project reached its goal of 90% compliance within 6 weeks and maintained sustained improvement with further PDSA cycles. A standard operating procedure has been created to help embed the changes on these wards. Our future aims are to redesign and improve the current electronic system and to help spread positive changes throughout the Trust.
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