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Streamlining Discharge Planning for Patients Returning to Nursing Homes: The Electronic Transmission of Medical Records

Streamlining Discharge Planning for Patients Returning to Nursing Homes: The Electronic... The timely communication of medical information among health care providers is essential tomaintaining quality care for older adults moving between health care facilities. Focusing on theevaluation phase of the discharge planning process, this study examined whether the evaluationtime spent by hospital discharge planners and floor nurses could be reduced by replacing thecustomary telephone procedure with an electronic transmission procedure (a) to expand theinformation base communicated to nursing homes and (b) to send this enriched informationearlier in the discharge process. Using a quasi-experimental design, 31 discharges from amidwestern hospital to seven nursing homes were examined. Sixteen hospitalized nursing homeresidents were evaluated via the usual telephone procedure and 15 were evaluated using afacsimile machine to communicate medical and psychosocial information. The average timespent to complete discharge evaluations was reduced from 3.8 to 3.2 hours. A substantialreduction also occurred in the number of telephone calls for purposes of evaluation. Electronictransmission of patient information offers promise of more comprehensive and timely dischargeservices, particularly for high needs patients. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Applied Gerontology SAGE

Streamlining Discharge Planning for Patients Returning to Nursing Homes: The Electronic Transmission of Medical Records

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References (19)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
Copyright © by SAGE Publications
ISSN
0733-4648
eISSN
1552-4523
DOI
10.1177/073346489501400205
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The timely communication of medical information among health care providers is essential tomaintaining quality care for older adults moving between health care facilities. Focusing on theevaluation phase of the discharge planning process, this study examined whether the evaluationtime spent by hospital discharge planners and floor nurses could be reduced by replacing thecustomary telephone procedure with an electronic transmission procedure (a) to expand theinformation base communicated to nursing homes and (b) to send this enriched informationearlier in the discharge process. Using a quasi-experimental design, 31 discharges from amidwestern hospital to seven nursing homes were examined. Sixteen hospitalized nursing homeresidents were evaluated via the usual telephone procedure and 15 were evaluated using afacsimile machine to communicate medical and psychosocial information. The average timespent to complete discharge evaluations was reduced from 3.8 to 3.2 hours. A substantialreduction also occurred in the number of telephone calls for purposes of evaluation. Electronictransmission of patient information offers promise of more comprehensive and timely dischargeservices, particularly for high needs patients.

Journal

Journal of Applied Gerontology – SAGE

Published: Jun 1, 1995

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