Patient Oriented Discharge Summary Impact Study

Summary

Improving the patient experience has become a major focus of quality improvement efforts in Ontario and in health systems worldwide. However, our existing knowledge base is relatively under-developed, particularly in how patients experience care as they transition from one care setting to another and the relationship between patient experience and clinical outcomes. The Patient Oriented Discharge Summary (PODS) is a discharge instruction tool created by patients, caregivers, health-care providers and design experts. It provides a written template for providers to engage patients and caregivers when reviewing important instructions on medications, activity and diet restrictions, follow-up appointments and worrisome symptoms warranting emergency care following admission to hospital. The PODS also uses plain and simple wording, large fonts, pictograms, and includes white space for patients to take notes and provides the option for translation of major headings into the most common spoken languages. The PODS impact study will study the impact of using the PODS versus usual discharge instructions on patient experience and health outcomes in a provincial-wide randomized study across acute care and rehabilitation hospitals.

Conditions

• Congestive Heart Failure
• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
• Pneumonia
• Hip Fracture
• Total Hip Replacement
• Total Knee Replacement

Interventions

OTHER

Patient Oriented Discharge Summary

The PODS provides a written template for providers to engage patients and caregivers when reviewing important discharge instructions on medications, activity and diet restrictions, follow-up appointments and worrisome symptoms warranting emergency care. The PODS also uses plain and simple wording, large fonts, pictograms, and includes white space for patients to take notes and provides the option for translation of major headings into the most common spoken languages. As this will be a pragmatic design, we may make modifications to the process involved in completing the PODS, such as using pre-filled disease-specific information, if system processes and providers involved deem it more usable and feasible.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Baycrest

  collaborator OTHER

• Bruyère Health Research Institute.

  collaborator OTHER

• Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre

  collaborator OTHER

• Mount Sinai Hospital, Canada

  collaborator OTHER

• University Health Network, Toronto

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Karen Okrainec, MD · UHN

• Howard B Abrams, MD · UHN

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

TRIPLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2016-02-29

Primary Completion

2018-08-31

Completion

2018-11-30

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations