Aust Fam Physician
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Timeliness and quality of hospital discharge summaries are crucial for patient safety and efficient health service provision after discharge. ⋯ Completion rates were good but utility was compromised by delays, content omissions and formatting. Digital searching enables extraction of information from rich existing datasets contained in GP records for accurate measurement of discharge summary receipt rate and timing.
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Patients with multimorbidity are increasingly common in general practice. Multimorbidity is a challenge for both patients and practitioners because of the complexity of care and its impact on patients' lives. Single-disease-based guidelines are of limited use to providers managing patients with multimorbidity. ⋯ Providing effective care for multimorbidity requires shared decision-making about goals with patients and more effective communication and coordination between providers. For this group of patients, our current single-disease-based models of care need to be replaced with more integrated ones in which the impact of all the patient's conditions on their quality of life are considered.