title: Dissemination of discharge summaries. Not reaching follow-up physicians.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To discover how often hospital discharge summaries were available to physicians seeing patients for follow-up visits after hospitalization.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cohort study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Teaching hospital in Ottawa, Ont.
  
  
  METHODS
  We studied 792 patients discharged from an internal medicine service after treatment for acute illness. We determined when and by which physician each patient was seen during the first 6 months after discharge. We also determined the date each patient's discharge summary was printed and the physicians to whom it was sent. We confirmed that summaries were received by means of a survey or by telephoning physicians' offices. Patients were observed for 6 months or until they were readmitted to hospital.
  
  
  METHODS
  Proportion of follow-up visits to physicians for which discharge summaries were available.
  
  
  RESULTS
  During the observation period, patients made 6619 visits (median six per patient, interquartile range [IQR] 2 to 9) to 914 different physicians (median three per patient, IQR 2 to 4). Discharge summaries were available for only 996 (15%) visits. Summaries were available for only 65 initial visits (8.2%); no summaries were available for any visit for 542 (68.4%) patients. Summaries were most commonly unavailable because they were not generated in time for follow-up visits (20.0%) or were not sent to follow-up physicians (50.8%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  At our institution, discharge summaries often did not get to physicians seeing patients after discharge from hospital.
authors.affiliation: carlv@ohri.ca
authors.forename: Carl
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: van Walraven
authors.forename: Ratika
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Seth
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Laupacis
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003266:Continuity of Patient Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005194:Family Practice; D005260:Female; D020445:Hospitalists; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D008297:Male; D008499:Medical Records; D009864:Ontario; D010351:Patient Discharge; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric