Abstract
Hospital and general practitioners should establish good communications so that continuity of care can be maintained when patients are discharged from hospital. A discharge letter was routinely prepared utilizing the standardized morbidity registration forms by the house surgeon for delivery to the patient s general practitioner. The authors developed a new discharge letter, which was sent under separate cover to the general practitioner. The two discharge letters were assessed utilising data fields recommended by the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN).
A total of 162 consecutive paediatric patient discharges were identified. The mean number of items present in the existing and the new discharge letters were 13.7 + 1.8 and 12.2 + 3 respectively. The new discharge letter met the SIGN guidelines more closely than the existing discharge letter.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.