CMW news: Incomplete discharge summaries to blame for preventable errors

A study released by the Indiana University School of Medicine finds that hospital discharge summaries lack information important to patients’ continuity of care.

Indiana University School of Medicine researchers published their findings in the September issue of Journal of General Internal Medicine under the title Adequacy of Hospital Discharge Summaries in Documenting Tests with Pending Results and Outpatient Follow-up Providers.

The researchers reviewed 668 discharge summaries from two academic medical centers. They found that the hospitals discharged nearly 41% of the patients with test results pending—9% of those tests required changes with respect to patient care. However, the hospitals documented only 16% of those tests in patient discharge summaries. Only 13% of summaries included all pending tests.

Researchers say without that information, primary care physicians can’t provide the appropriate care patients need after discharge.

"Errors in communication reportedly contribute to over half of all preventable adverse events and are associated with twice as many deaths when compared with errors due to clinical inadequacy,” researchers conclude in their report.

Source: American Academy of Professional Coders and American Medical Association