Evaluation of electronically supported nursing transfers between hospital and nursing home based on a test health telematics infrastructure: a case analysis

Background: Improper information transmission can lead to compromised patient safety and quality of life when patients are transferred from one setting to another. Electronic instruments may improve this situation, however, they are rarely used.

Objective: The aim of this study therefore was to investigate the technical and organizational feasibility, usability, usefulness and completeness of an electronic instrument that is based on the German HL7 CDA standard for eNursing Summaries.

Materials and methods: To this end, a test health telematics infrastructure, which included the German electronic health card, was established and nursing summary application was developed that allowed summary documents to be communicated between a hospital and a nursing home. The users were asked to evaluate the usability of the nursing summary application as well as to compare the usefulness and completeness of electronically and paper transmitted information.

Results: This study demonstrated th...