NEHTA Home - e-Communications in Practice - e-Discharge Summaries

e-Discharge Summaries

e-Discharge Summaries will enable the electronic exchange of comprehensive and accurate patient reports between hospitals and primary healthcare sectors. Major benefits of a nationwide e-Discharge Summary system include:

Improved continuity
The primary function of an e-Discharge Summary is to support the continuity of care as the patient returns to the care of their community health care provider(s). e-Discharge Summaries improve continuity of care and patient handover and offer security, accessibility and timeliness of health information.

Increased safety
The electronic exchange of patient reports between hospitals and the primary healthcare sectors will ultimately lead to improved safety and quality, through the exchange of timely, accurate and structured discharge summary information to health care providers, enabling better patient outcomes.

The e-Discharge Summary Program
We will work with healthcare organisations to understand the technologies and processes currently used for e-Discharge Summaries, and collaboratively plan the most effective approach to introduce alignment of these technologies and processes with national standards and NEHTA’s blueprint for e-Discharge Summaries.

Once the most effective solution is established, the e-Discharge Summary program will create recommendations to bring existing projects in line with national standards and establish a blueprint for future e-Discharge projects.

Contact
For more information on the e-Discharge Summary program contact
Sean Holmes, Program Manager - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Additional NEHTA documentation supporting the e-Discharge Summary package documentation:

 eDischarge Summary - Core CDA Implementation Guide Release 1 v1.1 Draft 20091125 (1.69 MB)
 eDischarge Summary-Core CDA Implementation Guide Release 1: Instance Document and Schema files v1 (55.39 kB)