How do physicians measure the quality of their discharge communication? It’s important to evaluate our hospitals and ourselves to understand where there are opportunties for novel interventions.

There are several things that I believe are important to measure:

1. Patient Comprehension

How knowledgeable was the patient about their diagnosis, and other key discharge information after their visit?

2. Adherence to the treatment regimen

How long after being discharged to patients adhere to the treatment regimen if at all. How correctly do they do this?

3. Patient Satisfaction

How satisfied are patients with their experience at the hospital?

4. ED Revisits

How frequently do patients return to the emergency department due to miscommunication after being discharged?

5. Hospital Readmissions

How frequently are patients readmitted to the hospital after being discharged?

These are the factors we want to measure when evaluating our discharge process. Any intervention that sets out to improve communication at hospital discharge should have a meaningful positive impact on one or more of the measurements above.