Background
Transition of care represents a significant patient safety risk due to the potential loss of critical clinical information (World Health Organization, 2016, p.3).
Research identifies the omission of medications as the most common type of discrepancy found in patient records (Hellström et al., 2012, p. 6). Furthermore, reliance on patient memory in acute situations is often unreliable, as many older emergency patients are unable to provide a complete or accurate account of their medication history (Goldberg et al., 2021, p. 2). Beyond medications, there are substantial deficiencies in the documentation of allergies. This problem is particularly acute during prehospital transitions, where allergy details are often missing from both transfer-of-care forms and report documents. Such documentation gaps pose a significant risk to patient safety and can lead to avoidable adverse events (Lubin & Sha, 2022, p. 3) (Ringwald et al., 2024, p. 143).
Project Vision
TrinitySync improves the flow of information during the very first contact with emergency responders. This enables faster, more effective and safer emergency care, while helping to reduce both errors and delays.
The solution is based on a small, predefined dataset consisting of the Trinity: allergies, medications, and pre-existing conditions.
Key Features
TrinitySync is a web application, which is designed to receive medical data directly from the primary care physician, ensuring that the information is always up to date.
Access to the data is enabled via a QR code combined with a secure token. Use is strictly limited to approved medical professionals, such as emergency responders. The current concept is to place the QR code in a fixed and easily accessible location, for example on the outside of the fridge. This ensures a consistent placement, which is easy to locate in emergency situations. Scanning the QR code directs authorized personnel to a secure webpage displaying the individual’s name, date of birth and the Trinity dataset: allergies, medications and pre-existing conditions.
A strong emphasis is placed on intuitive design, ease of understanding and efficient usability, with a clear focus on saving time.
Project Goal
The goal is to ensure continuity of care by providing the Trinity of information. TrinitySync is designed to support medical professionals, with a particular focus on emergency responders.
It is essential that the solution does not impose any additional workload on emergency responders – because saving time should never mean losing it.
References
Goldberg, E. M., Marks, S. J., Merchant, R. C., Nagy, J. L., Aquilante, J. A., & Beaudoin, F. L. (2021). How Accurately Do Older Adult Emergency Department Patients Recall Their Medications? Academic Emergency Medicine, 28(2), 248–252. https://doi.org/10.1111/acem.14032
Hellström, L. M., Bondesson, Å., Höglund, P., & Eriksson, T. (2012). Errors in medication history at hospital admission: Prevalence and predicting factors. BMC Clinical Pharmacology, 12(1), 9. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6904-12-9
Lubin, J. S., & Shah, A. (2022). An Incomplete Medical Record: Transfer of Care From Emergency Medical Services to the Emergency Department. Cureus. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.22446
Ringwald, M., Moi, L., Wetzel, A., Comte, D., Muller, Y. D., & Ribi, C. (2024). Risk factors for allergy documentation in electronic health record: A retrospective study in a tertiary health center in Switzerland. Allergology International, 73(1), 143–150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.alit.2023.06.006
World Health Organization. (2016). Transitions of Care: Technical Series on Safer Primary Care. WHO. Abgerufen am: 25.01.2026. https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/252272/9789241511599eng.pdf?sequence=1
A project at the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences Master Program Digital Healthcare.
Project Team: Georg Guenthoer, Armin Schlacher, Mirna Elhabbak, Susan Najmi, Ines Mayr
Project Coach: FH-Prof. Dipl.-Sporting. Dr. Mario Heller
