Discharge report for the community pharmacist: Development and validation of a prototype

The potential benefit of community pharmacist's involvement in continuity of care is well-known. However, it is not standard practice to exchange information with the community pharmacist (CP) after hospitalization.

To construct and validate an evidence-based prototype of a discharge report for the community pharmacist.

First, a review of literature, guidelines and established initiatives was performed to construct a preliminary discharge report. Secondly, the content of the discharge report was reviewed and optimized using semi-structured individual interviews with CPs and general practitioners (GPs).

The review identified six guidelines for information exchange with the CP originating from three countries, 17 research papers and three local initiatives. Overall, 49 different elements for a discharge document were identified. Based on recurring elements, a preliminary discharge report was created. Interviews with ten CPs and nine GPs provided insights into which information is considered crucial for patient safety and why. This allowed an optimization of the document. The final discharge report consists of three categories: administrative, medication and medical data. The medication data includes medication registered at hospital admission as well as at hospital discharge, drug indications, reasons for initiating, adjusting or discontinuing therapies and start/stop dates. The medical data contains reasons for hospitalization, comorbidities and allergies.

The literature review and semi-structured interviews resulted in an evidence-based prototype of a discharge report for the community pharmacist. This document contains both administrative, medical and medication data.