Facilitating discharge summary preparation in small hospitals.

This paper presents the result of a project to facilitate discharge summary preparation in small hospitals at low cost. Using an eye diseases hospital with twelve beds as an example, an integrated system for discharge summary preparation on a microcomputer platform was developed. The integrated system eliminated redundant data entry by a pull-type approach that automatically retrieved pertinent information from pre-existing records for inclusion in the discharge summary. Abbreviated and full versions of the discharge summary were generated with very little interactive time required of the physician or record clerk. The microcomputer implementation is described in this paper to illustrate the functionality and ease of this integrated system.