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Value of Technology to Transfer Discharge Information

NCT00101868 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 631

Last updated 2012-05-15

Study results available
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Summary

The transition from hospital to home is a high-risk period in a patient's illness. Poor communication between healthcare providers at hospital discharge is common and contributes to adverse events affecting patients after discharge. The importance of good communication at discharge will increase as more primary care providers delegate inpatient care to hospitalists. Any process that improves information transfer among providers at discharge might improve the health and safety of patients discharged from U.S. hospitals each year, and to appreciably reduce unnecessary healthcare expenditures. Information transfer among healthcare providers and their patients can be undermined because of inaccuracies, omissions, illegibility, logistical failure (e.g., information is never delivered), and delays in generation (i.e., dictation or transcription) or transmission. Root causes include recall error, increased physician workloads, interface failures (e.g., physician-clerical) and poor training of physicians in the discharge process. Many of the deficiencies in the current process of information transfer at hospital discharge could be effectively addressed by the application of information technology. The proposed study will measure the value of a software application to facilitate information transfer at hospital discharge. The study is designed to compare the benefits of discharge health information technology versus usual care in high-risk patients recently discharged from acute care hospitalization. The design is a randomized, single-blind, controlled trial. The outcomes are readmission within 6 months, adverse events, and effectiveness and satisfaction with the discharge process from the patient and physician perspectives. The cost outcome is the physician time required to use the discharge software.

Conditions

  • Information Dissemination
  • Interprofessional Relations

Interventions

DEVICE

Discharge communication software

Computerized physician order entry software used by discharging physician

OTHER

Usual care discharge process

Handwritten

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • University of Illinois at Chicago

    collaborator OTHER

  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

    lead FED

Principal Investigators

  • James F Graumlich, MD · University of Illinois College of Medicine

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2004-12-31
Primary Completion
2007-08-31
Completion
2007-08-31

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT00101868 on ClinicalTrials.gov