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Automatic Feedback Indicator to Enhance the Hospital Discharge Communication Between Acute Care and Primary Care.
Sponsor: University Hospital, Grenoble
Summary
This study, titled "Automated Indicator Feedback for Improving the Quality of Discharge Letters: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial" (FIAQ-LS), aims to evaluate whether continuous real-time feedback to hospital teams can improve the quality of discharge letters. Discharge letters are critical for ensuring continuity of care and reducing adverse events by providing detailed information about a patient's hospital stay to both the patient and their primary care physician. The study will be conducted at Grenoble Alpes University Hospital and involve 40 hospital services across three campuses. The trial design includes two parallel arms: an intervention group receiving monthly performance feedback through automated dashboards and a control group with no additional intervention. Services are randomized into these groups using a stratified cluster approach. The primary objective is to assess whether this intervention increases the proportion of discharge letters validated on the day of discharge compared to usual care. Secondary objectives include evaluating patient satisfaction, rates of unplanned 30-day readmissions, and completeness of discharge letter content. The study will include data from approximately 132,000 patient stays over two phases: a pre-implementation observational period (12 months) and an intervention phase (12 months). All data will be collected and analyzed anonymously, with findings expected to inform the broader implementation of quality improvement strategies in French hospitals.
Official title: Automatic Feedback Indicator to Enhance the Hospital Discharge Communication Between Acute Care and Primary Care: a Randomized Controlled Cluster Trial
Key Details
Gender
All
Age Range
Any - Any
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Enrollment
132000
Start Date
2025-03-01
Completion Date
2026-02-01
Last Updated
2025-02-19
Healthy Volunteers
No
Conditions
Interventions
Monthly Performance Feedback with Dashboards (Automated Audit and Feedback)
Hospital services in the intervention group will receive monthly automated dashboards that provide detailed performance metrics. These include: The proportion of patients with a discharge letter generated on the day of discharge, The proportion of discharge letters validated on the day of discharge, Median delays for generating discharge letters, Median delays for validating discharge letters. The dashboards are shared with all physicians, nurse managers, and secretarial staff in each service. A designated quality improvement officer is available to assist teams in interpreting the data and implementing organizational changes based on the feedback. The intervention uses real-time data extraction from the hospital's electronic health record system to generate these insights.
Locations (1)
Centre hospitalier de Grenoble Alpes
Grenoble, France