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