A time-motion study of residents and medical students performing patient discharges from general internal medicine wards: a disjointed, interrupted process.

Patients are at high risk for adverse events after discharge from a hospital admission. As a critical and often time-consuming aspect of care for hospitalized patients, the purpose of this study was to describe the physician time, events and workflow in performing a patient discharge. On General Internal Medicine (GIM) wards at two academic medical centers in Toronto, a time-motion study was performed on 11 residents and 2 medical students performing 32 patient discharges.