Tag Archives: quality improvement

Introduction According to the British Heart Foundation (BHF), in the UK there are more than 100,000 hospital admissions each year due to ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), equating to 280 admissions each day, or one every five minutes.1 The Essex cardiothoracic centre (CTC) is a tertiary, state-of-the-art centre that is equipped to deal with these high-risk cases. There are five district hospitals covered by the Essex CTC to provide a primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) service. The patient turnover is high and there are emergency and elective procedures undertaken every day. The discharge of patients needs to be timely

Introduction Hospital doctors have a professional responsibility to complete an accurate and comprehensive discharge summary with relevant clinical details. It is fundamental that any healthcare professional supporting the aftercare of a heart failure patient is briefed on the diagnosis, clinical progress, treatment and follow-up arrangements following hospitalisation. The purpose of a discharge summary is to share important clinical information about a patient’s hospital episode with their GP and other healthcare professionals responsible for providing continuing care. However, discharge summaries often fail to communicate effectively.1 In