Quality of discharge summaries prepared by first year internal medicine residents

BMC Medical Education

Table 1 Frequency of missing information in discharge summaries

	Missing n/N*	% (95% CI)
Discharge diagnosis	1/90	1.1 (0.0-6.6)
Discharge medication list	5/89	5.6 (2.1-12.8)
Medication change(s)	4/82	4.9 (1.5-12.3)
Reason for medication change(s)	13/82	15.9 (9.5-25.4)
Clinical course in hospital	0/90	0.0 (0.0-4.9)
Result of relevant investigations	3/90	3.3 (0.7-9.8)
Follow-up instructions for family physicians	3/87	3.4 (0.7-10.1)

Abbreviations: 95 % CI, 95 % confidence interval.
*Note that some discharge summaries in the study sample are excluded from the denominator if a given item was not applicable for the patient’s stay in hospital (e.g., “Reason for medication change(s)” would not be relevant for a patient whose medications were not changed during that hospitalization).

ISSN: 1472-6920