Signing on to sign out, part 2: describing the success of a web-based patient sign-out application and how it will serve as a platform for an electronic discharge summary program.

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre developed and implemented a physician-focused web-based patient sign-out application in January of 2005 with 40 different groups throughout the hospital now using it. More groups are continuing to request access to the system, including nursing and other multidisciplinary groups. The success of the system is attributable to its simplicity and usability as there is rarely any downtime and no formal training for physicians is ever necessary. The next step is to create an electronic discharge summary program. Using an electronic system to complete discharge summaries will allow more efficient completion of discharge summaries, improve the quality of discharge summaries and improve the timeliness of delivery to the family physician. Integrating the electronic discharge summary program with the current sign-out application is a logical approach because the two processes follow each other in the flow of care, information from the sign-out application is transferable to the discharge summary and both processes are essential for maintaining the continuity of care.