Information Exchange Between Providers During Transitions of Surgical Care: Communication, Documentation and Sometimes Both

Poor communication of health information between healthcare providers is associated with over 80% of medical errors that occur during transitions of care [1]. We interviewed a diverse sample of primary care providers and surgical providers during their patient's transitions of care before and after surgery at a Veteran's Health Administration hospital and a large tertiary academic medical center to understand how providers communicate and exchange health information for medically complex older patient across different care settings. Our objective was to identify factors that lead to poor communication as well as strategies to optimize provider-provider communication. This paper highlights the methods providers use to communicate and document health information within two separate electronic medical record (EMR) systems during transition of care and presents a conceptual diagram of how information exchange occurs within these two EMR systems.