None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Aim: The purpose of this study is to find out whetheror not telephone referral from Primary Health Care to Internal Medicine Consult manages to reduce waiting days as compared to traditional referral. This study also aims to know how acceptable is the telephone referral to general practitioners and their patients. Design: No blind randomized controlled clinical trial. Setting Northern Huelva Health District. Participant 154 patients. Interventions Patients referrals from intervention clinicians were sent via telephone consultation, whereas patients referrals from control clinicians were sent by the traditional method for a face-to-face consultation, Measurements: Number of days from referral request to Internal Medicine Consult; Number of telephone and traditional referrals; Number of doctors and patients denied; Denial reasons. Results: A statistically significant difference was found between groups, with an average of 27 (21-34) days. Among General Practitioners, 8 of the first 58 total doctors after randomization and, subsequently, 6 of the 20 doctors of the test group refused to engage in the trial because they considered “excessive time and effort consuming”. 50 % of patients referred by the 14 General Practitioners finally randomized to the intervention group were denied referral by telephone due to patient’s complexity. Conclusions: Telephone referral significantly reduces waiting days for internal medicine consult. This type of referral did not mean an “excessive time and effort consuming” to General Practitioners and was not all that beneficial to complex patients.
Interventions
Patients referrals were carreid out via telephone consultation so that the General Practitoners were able to consult directly the Internal Medicine doctors by telephone in order to obtain an early diagnosis. The time to access to the General Practitioner for the first consultation was from 1 to 3 days. During this first telephone consult between the General Practitioner and the Internal Medicine specialist, they both reached an agreement concerning the treatment, and the complementary tests and
Patients referrals were carreid out via telephone consultation so that the General Practitoners were able to consult directly the Internal Medicine doctors by telephone in order to obtain an early diagnosis. The time to access to the General Practitioner for the first consultation was from 1 to 3 days. During this first telephone consult between the General Practitioner and the Internal Medicine specialist, they both reached an agreement concerning the treatment, and the complementary tests and future check-up were scheduled. The timing for obtaining the results of the complementary tests was 17 days.
Sponsors
LUIS MIGUEL AZOGIL LÓPEZ
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Diagnosis
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to 85 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Every patient who needed to be referred to Internal Medicine Hospital Consultation according to the Geeral Practitioners´decision. General Practitioners from the north area of Huelva (Spain) who agreed to participate in the trial.
Exclusion criteria
Whenever the General Practitioner considered that a patient would not get significant benefit from the telephone referral. Patients who refused to participate in the study General Practitioners who refused to participate in the trial.
Outcome results
None listed