Trial reportCMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne2006
Impact of an electronic link between the emergency department and family physicians: a randomized controlled trial.
Trial report in CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne, 2006. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The Empirical Foundations of Telemedicine Interventions in Primary Care.Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association · 2016Pooled it
- The Seamless Transfer-of-Care Protocol: a randomized controlled trial assessing the efficacy of an electronic transfer-of-care communication tool.BMC health services research · 2012Trial
- The associations between query-based and directed health information exchange with potentially avoidable use of health care services.Health services research · 2019Article
- Unintended Consequences of Nationwide Electronic Health Record Adoption: Challenges and Opportunities in the Post-Meaningful Use Era.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Article
- A Patient-Centered Mobile Health System That Supports Asthma Self-Management (breathe): Design, Development, and Utilization.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2019Article
- The implications and impact of 3 approaches to health information exchange: community, enterprise, and vendor-mediated health information exchange.Learning health systems · 2017Article
- Hospitalization event notifications and reductions in readmissions of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries in the Bronx, New York.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2017Article
- Health information exchange associated with improved emergency department care through faster accessing of patient information from outside organizations.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2017Article
- Health information exchange in the wild: the association between organizational capability and perceived utility of clinical event notifications in ambulatory and community care.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2017Article
- Outcomes From Health Information Exchange: Systematic Review and Future Research Needs.JMIR medical informatics · 2015Article
- A user needs assessment to inform health information exchange design and implementation.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2015Article
- The potential for community-based health information exchange systems to reduce hospital readmissions.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2015Article
- Association between use of a health information exchange system and hospital admissions.Applied clinical informatics · 2014Article
- Improving transmission rates of electronic discharge summaries to GPs.BMJ quality improvement reports · 2013Article
- Allocation techniques for balance at baseline in cluster randomized trials: a methodological review.Trials · 2012Review
- The impact of health information exchange on health outcomes.Applied clinical informatics · 2011Article
- Health information exchange and healthcare utilization.Journal of medical systems · 2009Article
- Virtual links to the emergency department.CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne · 2006Article
- Virtual links to the emergency department.CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne · 2006Article
- A collaborative chain out of phase.International journal of integrated careArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundElectronic information exchange is believed to improve efficiency and reduce resource utilization. We developed a Web-based standardized communication system (SCS) that enables family physicians to receive detailed reports of their patients' care in the emergency department. We sought to determine the impact of the SCS on measures of resource utilization in the emergency department and family physician offices.
methodsWe used an open 4-period crossover cluster-randomized controlled design. During 2 separate 10-week intervention phases, family physicians received detailed reports of their patients' emergency department visits over the Internet, and in the alternating control phases they received a 1-page copy of the emergency department notes by mail. The primary outcome was the number of repeat visits to the emergency department within 14 days of the initial visit. Secondary outcomes included duplication of test and specialty consultation requests by the emergency and family physician. Outcomes were measured using the hospital database and questionnaires sent to the family physicians.
resultsA total of 2022 patient visits to the emergency department from 23 practices were used in the study. Use of the SCS failed to reduce the number of repeat visits to the emergency department within 14 days (odds ratio [OR] 1.10, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.8-1.51) and 28 days (OR 1.01, 95% CI 0.8-1.27). There was no significant duplication of requests for diagnostic tests between the emergency and family physician during the intervention and control phases (24 v. 22, p = 0.93), but there was significantly greater duplication in specialty consultation requests in the intervention phase than in the control phase (20 v. 8, p = 0.049).
interpretationAn electronic link between emergency and family physicians did not result in a significant reduction in resource utilization at either service point. Investments in improved electronic information exchange between emergency departments and family physician offices may not be substantiated by a reduction in resource utilization.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.