Value of Technology to Transfer Discharge Information

Completed · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Information Dissemination, Interprofessional Relations

In brief

The transition from hospital to home is a high-risk period in a patient's illness. Poor communication between healthcare providers at hospital discharge is common and contributes to adverse events affecting patients after discharge. The importance of good communication at discharge will increase as more primary care providers delegate inpatient care to hospitalists. Any process that improves information transfer among providers at discharge might improve the health and safety of patients discharged from U.S. hospitals each year, and to appreciably reduce unnecessary healthcare expenditures. Information transfer among healthcare providers and their patients can be undermined because of inaccuracies, omissions, illegibility, logistical failure (e.g., information is never delivered), and delays in generation (i.e., dictation or transcription) or transmission. Root causes include recall error, increased physician workloads, interface failures (e.g., physician-clerical) and poor training of physicians in the discharge process. Many of the deficiencies in the current process of information transfer at hospital discharge could be effectively addressed by the application of information technology. The proposed study will measure the value of a software application to facilitate information transfer at hospital discharge. The study is designed to compare the benefits of discharge health information technology versus usual care in high-risk patients recently discharged from acute care hospitalization. The design is a randomized, single-blind, controlled trial. The outcomes are readmission within 6 months, adverse events, and effectiveness and satisfaction with the discharge process from the patient and physician perspectives. The cost outcome is the physician time required to use the discharge software.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT00101868

Run by

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

People needed

631

Starts

2004-12-01

Expected to finish

2007-08-01

Last updated by the study team

2012-05-15

Who can join

Age: 18 and older. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Inpatients at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center
• Discharged by the hospitalist service or other inpatient services
• High risk for poor post-discharge outcomes defined as probability of readmission (PRA) 0.4 or above

You may not qualify if…

• Less than 18 years old
• Unwilling or unable to provide written consent
• Life expectancy less than 6 months
• Will receive outpatient care from a primary care physician who is the same as the discharging physician
• Do not speak English or Spanish
• Not alert and oriented when admitted
• Do not have telephone for post-discharge contact
• Do not reside in Central Illinois
• Will be discharged to a nursing home
• Previously enrolled as subjects in the trial

Where it is running

• OSF Saint Francis Medical Center — Peoria, Illinois, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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