A discharge letter is mostly copying.
Diagnoses sit in the hospital information system, lab values in the results system, the clinical course in the chart, the medication in the prescribing module. Whoever writes the letter opens each one in turn and copies it into the in-house template. Because every author works in a different order, two letters from the same ward look different.
5sourcesDiagnosis list, lab results, clinical chart, medication and operation report are each called up separately.
40minutesThat is how long a discharge letter takes when the sources are compiled by hand.
3text blocksEvery author words the history, course and recommendation differently.
1sign-offThe doctor reads the letter at the end anyway, but until now has been reading raw text rather than a draft.
Before sign-off, all the doctor has left to do is read and correct the three text blocks; writing effort falls by 60%.
The 60% reduction in writing effort is this agent's headline figure. The number of sources, writing time and blocks describe a typical discharge letter on a ward; they are illustrative, not counted.