Quality Improvement Project by Reducing None Compliance Rate to The Writing and Approving the Discharge Summery At KFMMC-Dhahran

Abstract

Background& aim: More than 300,000 active patients' medical records are kept at our institute. In 2021 only 19% of respondents (consultant in charge of the patient) agreed to the discharge summary (DC). Consequently, a corrective action plan was put into place to increase the compliance rate to policy to at least 90%.

Methods & context: This is an observational, retrospective study undertaken at tertiary medical center. Around 1,600 health informatic (HIS) records for patients who required admission to the hospital for more than 24 hours and were for patients of any age were selected for this study. An audit team to monitor compliance with writing /approving policies for the DC summary was established. Furthermore, correction action plans were implemented and the auditing for compliance was monitored.

Result: Our interventions have significantly improved the quality of discharge documentation as well as increase the rate of compliance to writing/approving the DC summery up to ≥ 90% by June 2023. The rate of DC summery delinquency was also reduced to < 10%. Moreover, no printing for discharge summery also was of great value in ink and paper use coast reduction of 13327 SR by Y 2023. 

Conclusion:  The quality of DC summery documentation, and the rate of delinquent DC summery reports could be improved by applying health informatics restrictive measurement and quality monitoring tool.