Getting to grips with the standard
Completing a good discharge summary for a patient is essential for their ongoing treatment and care.
Miscommunication during handovers can lead to medication errors, unnecessary delays with diagnostic tests and patients not receiving safe and timely treatment.
The eDischarge Summary Standard enables hospitals to share accurate, standardised clinical information and coded data to GP practices by providing the structured information required to auto populate inpatient and day-case discharge documents.
All relevant information about the patient, including medications, procedures and allergies are shared to improve the quality and consistency of care.
Best practice is also to share the discharge summary with the patient when they leave hospital.
The benefits
Implementation of the eDischarge Summary Standard will bring a number of measurable benefits for secondary care, primary care and patients. Find out more by clicking on the icons in the image below:
Exploring the standard
The eDischarge Summary Standard, like all PRSB standards, is composed of sections of data items, some of which are common to all standards and some that are unique. The sections are clinical groupings of related subheadings and data items.
The standard includes the component parts of the discharge summary itself, which should be auto populated with data that is captured and recorded on the patient’s admission.
You can explore the content of the standard below:
This outlines the different types of information that should be recorded in a person’s discharge summary. This is not the full standard needed for implementation.
Explore the full standard and review the associated implementation guidance.
For more information about how PRSB information standards are structured, please see the Standards Explained section.
Where to use the standard
The eDischarge Summary Standard should be implemented within all secondary care electronic patient records, especially those that have, or are aspiring to have, the functionality to generate discharge summaries.
The intention is for the common information model to be applied throughout the systems so that data recorded throughout the patient journey is available in the correct, standardised format to auto populate the discharge summary.
The standard is published under section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and is a requirement of the NHS Standard Contract. An Information Standard Notice (ISN) has been published which currently applies to acute trusts or independent sector organisations commissioned by the NHS to provide secondary care. IT suppliers should work with their customers to determine the necessary system changes.
- View the Information Standards Notice (ISN): DAPB4042
PRSB Standards Explained
Why we need standards to record our health and care information in a consistent way so that it can be made available whenever it is needed.
Making change happen
Transformation programmes need clear goals, the right leadership and engaged staff and stakeholders. Get started by reading our information on transformational change.
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