TY - JOUR T1 - Is failure to act on discharge summaries causing harm in general practice? JF - Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin JO - Drug Ther Bull SP - 20 LP - 20 DO - 10.1136/dtb.2018.000059 VL - 57 IS - 2 A2 - , Y1 - 2019/02/01 UR - http://dtb.bmj.com/content/57/2/20.abstract N2 - Review of: Spencer RA et al. Processing of discharge summaries in general practice: a retrospective record review. Br J Gen Pract 2018;68:e576–85.Key learning pointsA review of 300 patient records found that follow-up actions were not completed in almost half (46%) of all discharge summaries.Harms occurred in 8% of cases in which changes to discharge summaries were not made, most of which were of moderate severity.High severity harms included progression of chronic kidney disease, subsequent hospitalisations from heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and a potentially preventable death from pneumonia.A retrospective review of hospital discharge summaries showed that requested actions were not fulfilled in almost half of all cases, which led to harm to patients in 8% of these cases.This retrospective review assessed 300 discharge summaries from 10 general … ER -