ArticleBMC health services research2009
How do general practitioners and specialists value their mutual communication? A survey.
Article in BMC health services research, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers, 2 of them syntheses 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
38 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Valued Components of a Consultant Letter from Referring Physicians' Perspective: a Systematic Literature Synthesis.Journal of general internal medicine · 2018Pooled it
- Quality indicators for the referral process from primary to specialised mental health care: an explorative study in accordance with the RAND appropriateness method.BMC health services research · 2017Pooled it
- Trial
- Impact of referral letters on scheduling of hospital appointments: a randomised control trial.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2014Trial
- Article
- Improving musculoskeletal care with AI enhanced triage through data driven screening of referral letters.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Article
- Intersectoral cooperation between university hospitals and physicians in private practice in Germany- where the potential for optimization lies.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- Outpatient care of adults with congenital heart disease in the UK: a qualitative appraisal of the clinician perspective.Open heart · 2024Article
- General practice management of COPD patients following acute exacerbations: a qualitative study.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2023Article
- The Role of Virtual Triage in Improving Clinician Experience and Satisfaction: A Narrative Review.Telemedicine reports · 2023Review
- General practice management of chronic post-surgical pain in patients with hip fracture: a qualitative study.Frontiers in medicine · 2023Article
- Non-acute chest pain in primary care; referral rates, communication and guideline adherence: a cohort study using routinely collected health data.BMC primary care · 2022Article
- [Prescribing behavior of Bavarian general practitioners at the inpatient-outpatient interface within the context of the Bavarian active substance agreement-qualitative results of the WirtMed Study].Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz · 2022Article
- Challenges in the management of people with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) in primary care: A qualitative study of general practitioner perspectives.Chronic illness · 2022Article
- Redundant laboratory testing on referral from general practice to the outpatient clinic: a post-hoc analysis.BJGP open · 2022Article
- Quality of hospital discharge letters for patients at the end of life: A retrospective medical record review.European journal of cancer care · 2022Article
- Communication of poor prognosis between secondary and primary care: protocol for a systematic review with narrative synthesis.BMJ open · 2021Article
- Development and implementation of a transmural palliative care consultation service: a multiple case study in the Netherlands.BMC palliative care · 2021Article
- Physicians' perspectives on estimating and communicating prognosis in palliative care: a cross-sectional survey.BJGP open · 2020Article
- Correspondence between primary and secondary care about patients with cancer: a Delphi consensus study.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCommunication between general practitioners (GPs) and specialists is important, if we want patients to receive the right type of care at the right moment. Most communication takes place through telephone contact, letters concerning information on patients more recently also by email, and joint postgraduate training. As much research has been aimed at the content of communication between GPs and specialists, we wished to address the procedural aspects of this communication. We addressed the following research question. How do GPs and specialists assess their mutual communication through telephone, letters and postgraduate courses?
methodsA cross-sectional study was conducted among a random sample of 550 GPs and 533 specialists selected from the Netherlands Medical Address Book. The response rate was 47% GPs (n = 259) and 44% specialists (n = 232).
resultsSpecialists qualify the GPs' telephone accessibility as poor; while GPs themselves do not. Specialists think poorly of the GPs' referral letter. Merely half of GPs feels their questions are addressed appropriately by the specialist, whereas specialists think this number is considerably higher. According to specialists, GPs often do not follow the advice given by them. GPs rate their compliance much higher. Less than a quarter of GPs feel the specialist's letter arrives on time. Specialists have a different perception of this.Both parties wish to receive feedback from one and other, while in practice they do so very little.
conclusionGPs and specialists disagree on several aspects of their communication. This impedes improvements. Both GP's accessibility by phone and time span to the specialist's report could be earmarked as performance indicators. GPs and specialists should discuss amongst themselves how best to compose a format for the referral letter and the specialist's report and how to go about exchanging mutual feedback.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.