Why continuity of care needs computing--results of a quantitative document analysis.
With the increasing practice of early discharges from hospital continuity of care is attaining new attention. Although communication gaps including incomplete and delayed information are well known the vast majority of discharge summaries are still paperbased. The question of this study was whether The medium paperbased discharge form can be structured and complete enough to overcome the communication deficits. All 32 different types of nursing discharge forms analysed suffered from a compromise between structure, content and space. None of the forms allowed for a complete documentation of the nursing process. Only the minority of forms offered the complete set of activities of daily living to be checked. Most of the forms were designed only by one sector without any provisions for different terminologies and needs across the sectors. It is concluded that these shortcomings can only be overcome by a dynamic and flexible instrument, ideally by an electronic discharge summary.
Hübner
Ursula
U
University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Business Economics-Healthcare Computing, P.O. Box 1940 D-49009 Osnabrück, FR Germany.
Giehoff
Carsten
C
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D003266:Continuity of Patient Care; D006801:Humans; D009737:Nursing Records; D010351:Patient Discharge