What Are the Emergency Room Fillable Hospital Discharge Papers?
Whenever a patient is discharged from the emergency room, they are given a set of instructions to follow to keep their illness at bay. These instructions are crucial to the patient’s betterment. Considering that a patient can be from any educational background, these guidelines should be as clear and straightforward as possible.
Verbal instructions are often given instead of emergency room fillable hospital discharge papers, and these generally don’t help the patient very well. This is because patients tend to forget these verbal instructions, their understanding, and the required treatment steps to follow.
So here in this article, we’ll go through everything one needs to know about hospital discharge papers, so no form of miscommunication occurs, hindering the patient’s health improvement.
The Details Needed to Complete an Emergency Room Fillable Hospital Discharge Papers Form
The information on these emergency room fillable hospital discharge papers should be as accurate and straightforward as possible, as the patient’s health depends on it. Here are some of the details required on these papers:
- Patient name
To identify whom the instructions are for, the patient’s name is recorded on these discharge papers.
- Reason for admittance
This part will include the patient’s health before hospitalization, current health status, and the initial evaluation findings.
- Diagnosis/expected course
Details about the initial diagnosis, significant findings, and current illness status will go here. The medical professional will also fill in details about how the condition will progress further.
- Treatment provided
All surgical, medical, diagnostics, invasive, noninvasive, or other treatments will be recorded here. If no such treatments were provided to the patient, a simple note of “no procedures” will go on the form.
- Potential complications
Any complications that could stem from the patient’s illness will go here. If treatable, instructions for solving those complications will also be included.
- Patient instructions
The most important part of the form, instructions will be given to the patient to follow, aiding in the recovery process. This part will include treatments, medications, or dietary instructions to follow.
- Follow up
Some patients will need to revisit the hospital so that medical professionals can check the recovery progress. Sometimes they will need more treatments and a change in medications, which will be included on the discharge papers.
- Attending physician’s name and signature
The physician attending the patient will also include his name and signature on the form for credibility purposes.
The Process of Filing Emergency Room Fillable Discharge Papers
Here’s how one can quickly fill the form:
- Take the form from a Hospital help desk or print one out yourself whenever you leave the hospital or clinic.
- First, one has to enter the patient’s details, such as their First/Last Name, DOB, Age, Gender, Address, City, and State.
- Next, enter the details of the primary health care professional, their name, hospital or clinic name, and the address.
- After that, under the Admission and Discharge Details, provide valid information, including the time of admission, source of referral, and date of discharge.
- Now, add the details on the diagnosis and the procedure applied during admission and discharge.
- Lastly, the healthcare staff who signs off the patient’s discharge will sign the form.
What Are the Emergency Room Fillable Hospital Discharge Papers Form Used for?
Emergency room discharge papers are crucial for the betterment of the patient. However, they also help a variety of medical professionals. It eases their work, provides essential information for the patient while assisting the staff in keeping crucial medical documentation that can be used later.
- Better patient-staff communication and safety from malpractice litigation
The first and foremost purpose of discharge papers is to help the patient recover after being released from hospital care and improve communication between medical professionals and the patient.
Any confusion or misunderstanding of the instructions can have dire consequences on both the physician and the patient, so it’s of utmost importance that these instructions are well documented and recognized.
A copy of these instructions is also kept with the staff signed and kept in the patient’s medical records. Through this practice, the emergency discharge papers also protect the medical staff from malpractice litigation.
Suppose any complications occur to the patient after they are released from medical care. In that case, it’s less likely that the physician will be to blame.
- An important form of education for patients and medical staff
For chronic medical illnesses, these emergency room fillable hospital discharge papers can act as a form of educative material for patients to follow when professional medical care is out of reach.
However, it is to be noted that these papers are only valid for a specific period and condition and should be treated as professional medical advice when the condition once again arises.
This educative material is for patients and junior physicians who learn a lot about how a medical condition progresses, the complications associated with it, and the treatments to be administered. They offer young medical staff experience in the form of documentation.
Whenever young medical personnel write discharge papers, they prompt them to look at a situation from many different angles and how specific problems can arise, the care to provide to the patients, and the medicines to be administered.
- Quality Assurance
Previous discharge instructions can be analyzed and checked on well they were written. This can provide important information on how well the emergency department is performing its duties.
More often than not, the patient’s life depends upon it. After analyzing these discharge papers, improvements can be suggested, improving the patients’ emergency department’s care.
- It helps patients remember verbal instructions
Verbal instructions help bridge the communication barrier between a patient and a physician, effectively providing the patient will all the information they need to take care of themselves.
Verbal communication is also more well understood by the patient. So it plays a crucial role in clearing any uncertainties. Additionally, the patient can also ask follow-up questions from the physician, further clearing up any doubts.
Supplementary Resources on Emergency Room Fillable Hospital Discharge Papers
Here are some official resources to follow, which address the details to be included in these papers.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK43715/
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/hospital-discharge
