title: Benchmarking of hospital information systems: monitoring of discharge letters and scheduling can reveal heterogeneities and time trends.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Monitoring of hospital information system (HIS) usage can provide insights into best practices within a hospital and help to assess time trends. In terms of effort and cost of benchmarking, figures derived automatically from the routine HIS system are preferable to manual methods like surveys, in particular for repeated analysis.
  
  
  METHODS
  Due to relevance for quality management and efficient resource utilization we focused on time-to-completion of discharge letters (assessed by CT-plots) and usage of patient scheduling. We analyzed these parameters monthly during one year at a major university hospital in Germany.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found several distinct patterns of discharge letter documentation indicating a large heterogeneity of HIS usage between different specialties (completeness 51 - 99%, delays 0 - 90 days). Overall usage of scheduling increased during the observation period by 62%, but again showed a considerable variation between departments.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Regular monitoring of HIS key figures can contribute to a continuous HIS improvement process.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Informatics and Biomathematics, University of Münster, Domagkstr, 9, D-48149 Münster, Germany. dugas@uni-muenster.de
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dugas
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Eckholt
authors.forename: Holger
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bunzemeier
mesh_terms: D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D019985:Benchmarking; D006751:Hospital Information Systems / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D010351:Patient Discharge / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017748:Time Management