Diagnoses in discharge communications: how far are they reliable?
Adhiyaman, V.; Oke, A.; White, A.D.; Shah, I.U.
International Journal of Clinical Practice 54(7): 457-458
2000
ISSN/ISBN: 1368-5031 PMID: 11070571 Document Number: 524048
To discover whether general practitioners are correctly notified of a patient's final diagnosis following hospital discharge, an observational study was undertaken in a district general hospital. The final diagnosis was compared with the diagnosis documented in the discharge summary and the take-home prescription. Two hundred discharges were studied. Only 163 (81%) discharge summaries and 138 (69%) take-home prescriptions had the correct diagnosis; 24 (12%) take-home prescriptions did not have any diagnosis at all. In some cases the diagnosis differed between the discharge summaries and the take-home prescriptions. Only in 122 (61%) cases was the final diagnosis correctly documented in both instances. Communication regarding diagnosis in discharge letters is less than adequate. Every effort should be made to improve this.