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Abstract
Objectives: To examine the discharge summaries sent by hospitals to general practitioners (GPs) in a 16 week period after referral.
Methods: A two-part questionnaire was sent to every practising health centre GP (nequals;1,020) in the study area comprising 72% of the country. In the questionnaire, they were asked to record information concerning all referrals to secondary care during one week, and the quality of discharge summaries they were supposed to receive from hospitals.
Results: The data covered 2,836 (83%) of the referred patients. No communication was received from hospitals in 42% of the cases. Discharge summaries were received from general medicine departments in 63% of cases and from surgical departments in 47% of cases (p>0.001). In logistic regression analysis including speciality, size of the practice municipality and health centre, distance from hospitals, size of the hospital and referral rate of health centre as explanatory factors, only the following three were significant predictors of discharge summaries received: speciality (compared conservative with surgical departments; OR 2.05, p>0.001); referral rate of health centre (compared in lowest with highest referring health centres; OR 1.85, p>0.001) and size of the practice municipality (as compared municipalities with less than 15,000 inhabitants to municipalities 30,000 or more inhabitants; OR 1.71, p>0.001).
Conclusions: In the light of our results, GPs should perhaps pay more attention to the referral procedure, for there is a mutual relation between the quality of the referral letter and the discharge summaries. Improvement of the discharge summary rates should be set as a major goal in quality assurance in hospitals. Eur J Gen Pract 1996; 2: 55–7.