Discharge communication between hospitals and general practice – a comparison between fax, email, post and patient delivery.

Comparing receipt rates for hospital discharge communications sent to general practice by fax, email, post and patient delivery at one week following discharge for patients aged 60-100.

Status

Completed

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

ANZCTR

Registry ID

ACTRN12609000335291

Acronym

Closing the G@P

Enrollment

196

Registered

2009-05-22

Start date

2008-07-01

Completion date

Unknown

Last updated

2020-01-13

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

None listed

Brief summary

Timely and accurate discharge summaries play a critical role in the continuity of patient care between hospitals and primary care physicians or general practitioners in the community. The objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness of delivering of computer-generated discharge summaries to general practice by email, fax, post and patient hand-delivery.

Interventions

Transmission of electronic discharge summary for a total of 5 months in 2008, with summaries transmitted as they occur on a daily basis by: 1. email 2. post 3. patient hand delivery

Study design

Allocation

Randomised controlled trial

Intervention model

Parallel

Primary purpose

Treatment

Masking

Blinded (masking used)

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Age

60 Years to 100 Years

Healthy volunteers

Inclusion criteria

All admissions to the acute aged care ward of the hospital between July and October 2008 were candidates for inclusion in the study.

Exclusion criteria

Patients were ineligible if they were not admitted under a geriatrician or if they were transferred to another ward within the hospital prior to discharge.

Outcome results