General practitioner's satisfaction with patient discharge summaries following an Emergency Department Visit managed by a Registered Advanced Nurse Practitioner (RANP)

Aims To explore General Practitioners (GPs) perception and evaluation of the usefulness and relevance of the current RANP discharge summaries forwarded directly to the GP by the RANP following an episode of care. Background... [ view full abstract ]

Aims
To explore General Practitioners (GPs) perception and evaluation of the usefulness and relevance of the current RANP discharge summaries forwarded directly to the GP by the RANP following an episode of care.

Background
Clinical handover at the point of clinical discharge is of critical importance and generally occurs via a written document, usually in the form of a discharge summary. Hospital discharge summaries have been identified as contributing to continuity of care for patients who leave hospital, and who may require care in the community provided by GP practices. However these discharge summaries need to be accurate, valid, reliable, timely, legible and complete.

Design
A questionnaire survey was used which consisted of survey questions (quantitative) and open-ended comments (qualitative).

Methods
A questionnaire was distributed to 120 general practitioners subsequent to ethical approval from HSE North Eastern Area Research Ethics Committee. Raw statistical data were analyzed using SPSS version 22 for windows while the qualitative data arising from the open-ended questions were manually analysed.


Findings
Although the majority of GPs reported being very satisfied with the RANP discharge summary (65.1% n=59), the findings of this study support previous papers which identify deficits in communication between primary care and GPs especially around areas such as medication management and discharge instructions.

Conclusion
This study identifies a need to refine the current discharge summary to create an enhanced structured discharge summary template, which may be used by all disciplines.

Relevance to clinical practice
Discharge summaries provide a reliable description of the events, consequences and implications of an ED visit. Discharge summaries ensure that information accompanies the patient along their entire care pathway, and can mitigate against drug errors, hospitalization, and delays in patients receiving appropriate treatment.