Table 1

Characteristics of included studies by year

Study: authors (year)	Country	Methodological approach	Population	Intervention	Comparator	CHEC* score
Kopach et al (2005)7	Canada	Cost-effectiveness	Automation of medical documentation for entire hospital discharge	Speech recognition technology—signatures generated electronically, final documents sent through email or e-fax	Dictation through telephone used to created voice file to be transcribed—paper based signatures and traditional mailing	18
Colsman et al (2009)8	Germany	Cost–analysis	Dermatology department including four physicians and three typists	Electronic medical record system combining laboratory, experimental findings, nursing performance indicators—separate text editor used for writing discharge letters	Typists used to create discharge document	10
Aanesen et al (2010)9	Norway	Cost–benefit	10 hospital departments and nine primary care physicians	Discharge summary created electronically and sent electronically	Paper-based discharge	12
Mourad et al (2011)10	USA	Cost–analysis	600 bed quaternary care academic institution	NoteWriter with both free-test and autopopulated fields. Separate software tracks signatures and automatically triggers dissemination	Orally dictated discharge notes	7