Quality of discharge summaries sent by a regional hospital to general practitioners

Abstract

Background: A comprehensive hospital discharge summary sent to the patient's general practitioner (GP) in a timely manner can ease patient transition between care settings. Aim: To investigate the quality of discharge summaries sent by a regional hospital to GPs; and to evaluate GPs' satisfaction with the medication list contained in the discharge summary. Method: A questionnaire was mailed to a sample of 80 Gold Coast GPs who had made more than five referrals to the Gold Coast Hospital during June 2009. Results: 18 responses (23% response rate) were received from September to October 2009. The majority (67%) of GPs received discharge summaries from the hospital and they were mostly in an electronic format with attached medication lists. The reasons for changing medications were not well explained and the timeframe for receiving summaries was considered unsatisfactory. Overall, the majority of GPs were satisfied with the quality of the discharge summaries. Conclusion: GPs mostly received the discharge summaries and the majority received them electronically. The majority of GPs indicated that the medication lists were often attached to the discharge summaries and changes to medications recorded.