Trauma centers are required to provide feedback to referring hospitals to improve care quality. Yet feedback processes are not well defined and can be time-consuming to manage. Harborview Medical Center in Seattle has successfully implemented a system for providing feedback to hospitals within the Washington State Trauma System through password-protected access to patient electronic medical records.
The “U-link” system allows referring hospitals to access electronic medical records for trauma patients transferred to Harborview, according to a paper recently accepted by the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Hospitals used patient discharge summaries primarily for education, systems analysis and quality assurance. Read Abstract