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The Quality of Discharge Summaries at Al-Shaab Hospital, Sudan, in 2022: The First Cycle of a Clinical Audit
Background The discharge summary is a vital component of the modern health system. It is defined as a synopsis of information regarding events occurring during the inpatient care of a patient, to allow for a safe, quick, and effective patient-centered discharge process. It contains important informa...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Cureus
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10410477/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37565093 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.41620 |
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author | Eissa, Abdullatif Yasir H Mohamed Elhassan, Ahmed Zaki W Ahmed, Almothanna Zaki H Elgadi, Ammar Manhal, Gaffar Alemam A Fadul, Mohamed H Ahmed, Mohamed Ishag Fadul, Abdalla Mekki, Islah Ismail |
author_facet | Eissa, Abdullatif Yasir H Mohamed Elhassan, Ahmed Zaki W Ahmed, Almothanna Zaki H Elgadi, Ammar Manhal, Gaffar Alemam A Fadul, Mohamed H Ahmed, Mohamed Ishag Fadul, Abdalla Mekki, Islah Ismail |
author_sort | Eissa, Abdullatif Yasir H |
collection | PubMed |
description | Background The discharge summary is a vital component of the modern health system. It is defined as a synopsis of information regarding events occurring during the inpatient care of a patient, to allow for a safe, quick, and effective patient-centered discharge process. It contains important information about the patient’s hospital stay, including the reason for admission, treatment received, and follow-up needed. Low-quality discharge summaries pose a great risk to patient healthcare since the most frequent reason for error in clinical settings is poor communication. In the United Kingdom, the Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB) has adopted the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC) “Standards for the Clinical Structure and Content of Patient Records” and produced a standard discharge summary form. This study aimed to assess the quality of discharge summaries at Al-Shaab Hospital in Sudan in terms of information, filling adequacy, and adherence to international guidelines and evaluate the discharge interviews. Methods A cross-sectional institution-based study was conducted in the period of September to December 2022 at Al-Shaab Teaching Hospital in Khartoum, Sudan. Systematic random sampling was used to select the study participants from the discharged patients. A total of 70 patients were met in their wards over a period of two months, and the contents of their discharge cards were compared to items on an online checklist based on the Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB) and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC) standard discharge summary. The patients were also interviewed to assess their knowledge regarding their discharge information. Results The hospital’s discharge summary form contained only four headings: date, patient name, age, and ID number. The assessed cards were found to be missing valuable information, including date of admission (missing in 83%), filling doctor’s name (missing in 71%), and medication changes (missing in 70%). Only half of the summaries were clearly readable. The majority of patients had poor knowledge regarding their medication side effects (89%) and how to act in an emergency (86%), while knowledge of medication doses and follow-up details was good in 80% and 66%, respectively. Conclusion The patients are discharged with inadequately filled discharge forms. This may be due to the poor design of the form, so a newly designed form will be proposed, based on international standards. The discharge interview is also in need of improvement, to make sure patients are fully aware of their condition. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10410477 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Cureus |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-104104772023-08-10 The Quality of Discharge Summaries at Al-Shaab Hospital, Sudan, in 2022: The First Cycle of a Clinical Audit Eissa, Abdullatif Yasir H Mohamed Elhassan, Ahmed Zaki W Ahmed, Almothanna Zaki H Elgadi, Ammar Manhal, Gaffar Alemam A Fadul, Mohamed H Ahmed, Mohamed Ishag Fadul, Abdalla Mekki, Islah Ismail Cureus Quality Improvement Background The discharge summary is a vital component of the modern health system. It is defined as a synopsis of information regarding events occurring during the inpatient care of a patient, to allow for a safe, quick, and effective patient-centered discharge process. It contains important information about the patient’s hospital stay, including the reason for admission, treatment received, and follow-up needed. Low-quality discharge summaries pose a great risk to patient healthcare since the most frequent reason for error in clinical settings is poor communication. In the United Kingdom, the Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB) has adopted the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC) “Standards for the Clinical Structure and Content of Patient Records” and produced a standard discharge summary form. This study aimed to assess the quality of discharge summaries at Al-Shaab Hospital in Sudan in terms of information, filling adequacy, and adherence to international guidelines and evaluate the discharge interviews. Methods A cross-sectional institution-based study was conducted in the period of September to December 2022 at Al-Shaab Teaching Hospital in Khartoum, Sudan. Systematic random sampling was used to select the study participants from the discharged patients. A total of 70 patients were met in their wards over a period of two months, and the contents of their discharge cards were compared to items on an online checklist based on the Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB) and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC) standard discharge summary. The patients were also interviewed to assess their knowledge regarding their discharge information. Results The hospital’s discharge summary form contained only four headings: date, patient name, age, and ID number. The assessed cards were found to be missing valuable information, including date of admission (missing in 83%), filling doctor’s name (missing in 71%), and medication changes (missing in 70%). Only half of the summaries were clearly readable. The majority of patients had poor knowledge regarding their medication side effects (89%) and how to act in an emergency (86%), while knowledge of medication doses and follow-up details was good in 80% and 66%, respectively. Conclusion The patients are discharged with inadequately filled discharge forms. This may be due to the poor design of the form, so a newly designed form will be proposed, based on international standards. The discharge interview is also in need of improvement, to make sure patients are fully aware of their condition. Cureus 2023-07-10 /pmc/articles/PMC10410477/ /pubmed/37565093 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.41620 Text en Copyright © 2023, Eissa et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Quality Improvement Eissa, Abdullatif Yasir H Mohamed Elhassan, Ahmed Zaki W Ahmed, Almothanna Zaki H Elgadi, Ammar Manhal, Gaffar Alemam A Fadul, Mohamed H Ahmed, Mohamed Ishag Fadul, Abdalla Mekki, Islah Ismail The Quality of Discharge Summaries at Al-Shaab Hospital, Sudan, in 2022: The First Cycle of a Clinical Audit |
title | The Quality of Discharge Summaries at Al-Shaab Hospital, Sudan, in 2022: The First Cycle of a Clinical Audit |
title_full | The Quality of Discharge Summaries at Al-Shaab Hospital, Sudan, in 2022: The First Cycle of a Clinical Audit |
title_fullStr | The Quality of Discharge Summaries at Al-Shaab Hospital, Sudan, in 2022: The First Cycle of a Clinical Audit |
title_full_unstemmed | The Quality of Discharge Summaries at Al-Shaab Hospital, Sudan, in 2022: The First Cycle of a Clinical Audit |
title_short | The Quality of Discharge Summaries at Al-Shaab Hospital, Sudan, in 2022: The First Cycle of a Clinical Audit |
title_sort | quality of discharge summaries at al-shaab hospital, sudan, in 2022: the first cycle of a clinical audit |
topic | Quality Improvement |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10410477/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37565093 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.41620 |
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