Key result
General practice staff identified inconsistent discharge summary design, inadequate safety systems, and time pressures as key factors contributing to processing errors, highlighting the need for standardized templates and protected administrative time.
Why the study?
Discharge summaries are essential for communication from secondary care to general practice, but little is known about how primary care processes these documents.
Population
10 practice managers and 10 GPs across 10 general practices in three regions of England
Design
Qualitative semi-structured interview study
Authors
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May support standardized templates and protected admin time in general practice; leaves open impact on error rates.
Qualitative interviews with primary care staff identified key themes and strategies to mitigate faults in processing hospital discharge summaries to enhance safer care transitions.
Spencer et al. (2019) studied Processing discharge summaries (n=20). Discharge summary processing systems was evaluated on Themes related to factors associated with failure to respond to actions requested in discharge summaries. General practice staff identified inconsistent discharge summary design, inadequate safety systems, and time pressures as key factors contributing to processing errors, highlighting the need for standardized templates and protected administrative time.
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