SHM Converge Scientific Abstract ePoster Gallery-Development of a Rubric to Evaluate Written Patient Discharge Instructions

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This project describes the development of a rubric to objectively evaluate written patient discharge instructions created by medical students. The motivation was that discharge instructions are an important part of patient education and can reduce readmissions when they are clear and concise, yet students at the authors’ institution had little formal training in writing them.<br /><br />To address this gap, the team created a standardized workshop teaching best practices for discharge instructions and designed a scoring rubric to assess student performance before and after the workshop. The rubric was based on expert opinion and adapted from previously published scoring tools used to grade discharge summaries. It rated instructions across seven domains using a 0–3 point scale. The authors also incorporated the Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) to assess reading level, since low readability is strongly linked to better patient understanding. These measures were combined into a total score.<br /><br />Students wrote discharge instructions for fictional clinical vignettes before and after the educational intervention. The rubric was then used to score the writing and determine whether performance improved after training. The authors note that the standardized rubric helps reduce grading bias and provides a structured way to evaluate and improve discharge instruction quality.<br /><br />The project also suggests future uses for the rubric, including assessing clinicians’ discharge instructions to identify who may need additional training, creating standardized instructions for common diagnoses, and studying whether higher-scoring instructions lead to better patient outcomes or lower readmission rates.

Asset Subtitle

Stephen T. Lichtenstein

Meta Tag

Author List Ashwini Niranjan-Azadi, Kara-Grace Leventhal, Stephen T. Lichtenstein

Category Innovations

Concept Hospital Discharge Instructions

Concept Standardized Rubric

Concept Patient Education

Concept Readmission Rate

Concept Discharge Instruction Writing

Distinguished Non-Finalist

Presenter Organization University of Michigan

Presenting Author Stephen T. Lichtenstein

Track Education

Keywords

discharge instructions

medical students

rubric development

patient education

readmission reduction

writing assessment

educational intervention

readability

SMOG score

clinical training

Hospital Discharge Instructions

Standardized Rubric

Patient Education

Readmission Rate

Discharge Instruction Writing