Observational studyPloS one2018
The impact of electronic consultation on a Canadian tertiary care pediatric specialty referral system: A prospective single-center observational study.
Observational study in PloS one, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 4 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
25 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Family Physician-to-Hospital Specialist Electronic Consultation and Access to Hospital Care: A Systematic Review.JAMA network open · 2024Pooled it
- Barriers and Facilitators for Implementing Paediatric Telemedicine: Rapid Review of User Perspectives.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2021Pooled it
- Electronic consultations (E-consults) and their outcomes: a systematic review.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2020Pooled it
- Humanization interventions in general pediatric wards: a systematic review.European journal of pediatrics · 2019Pooled it
- Referral patterns and requested interventions in a cancer pain e-consult system.Interventional pain medicine · 2026Article
- A Virtual Integrated General Practitioner-Pediatrician Model of Care Implemented in Metropolitan and Rural Primary Care Settings: Qualitative Analysis of Clinician Perspectives on the SUSTAIN Model of Care.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Optimizing people's movement across the health system: a scoping review of referral systems within a primary health care approach.Primary health care research & development · 2025Article
- Increased access to pediatric specialist healthcare using eConsult: A retrospective observational cohort and case-control study.Paediatrics & child health · 2025Article
- General and subspecialist pediatrician perspectives on barriers and strategies for referral: a latent profile analysis.BMC pediatrics · 2023Article
- Does virtual consultation between primary and specialised care improve healthcare quality? A scoping review of healthcare quality domains assessment.BMJ open quality · 2023Article
- Assessment of multiple-opinion referrals and consults at the BC Children's Hospital Allergy Clinic.Allergy, asthma, and clinical immunology : official journal of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology · 2023Article
- General Practitioner Use of e-Consultation to Consult Hospital Specialists: Interview Study to Obtain Physician's Perceptions About Digital Interprofessional Communication.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Article
- The Use of Electronic Consultations in Outpatient Surgery Clinics: Synthesized Narrative Review.JMIR perioperative medicine · 2022Review
- Recommendations of the Valencian Society of Digestive Pathology for the use of telemedicine and non-contact consultations.Gastroenterologia y hepatologia · 2022Article
- Telehealth in the times of SARS-CoV-2 infection for the otolaryngologist.World journal of otorhinolaryngology - head and neck surgery · 2020Review
- Seeking Normalcy as the Curve Flattens: Ethical Considerations for Pediatricians Managing Collateral Damage of Coronavirus Disease-2019.The Journal of pediatrics · 2020Article
- Cardiology electronic consultations: Efficient and safe, but consultant satisfaction is equivocal.Journal of telemedicine and telecare · 2020Article
- Telehealth Delivery of Outpatient Pediatric Surgical Care in Hawai'i: An Opportunity Analysis.Hawai'i journal of health & social welfare · 2020Article
- Parent Perspectives on Family-Centered Pediatric Electronic Consultations: Qualitative Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2020Article
- Comparing Patients' Experiences with Electronic and Traditional Consultation: Results from a Multisite Survey.Journal of general internal medicine · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
29 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundChamplain BASE™ (Building Access to Specialists through eConsultation) is a web-based asynchronous electronic communication service that allows primary-care- practitioners (PCPs) to submit "elective" clinical questions to a specialist. For adults, PCPs have reported improved access and timeliness to specialist advice, averted face-to-face specialist referrals in up to 40% of cases and high provider satisfaction.
objectiveTo determine whether the expansion of eConsult to a pediatric setting would result in similar measures of improved healthcare system process and high provider acceptance reported in adults.
designProspective observational cohort study.
settingSingle Canadian tertiary-care academic pediatric hospital (June 2014-16) servicing 1.2 million people.
participants1. PCPs already using eConsult. 2.Volunteer pediatric specialists provided services in addition to their regular workload. 3.Pediatric patients (< 18 years-old) referred for none-acute care conditions. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Specialty service utilization and access, impact on PCP course-of-action and referral-patterns and survey-based provider satisfaction data were collected.
results1064 eConsult requests from 367 PCPs were answered by 23 pediatric specialists representing 14 specialty-services. The top three specialties represented were: General Pediatrics 393 cases (36.9%), Orthopedics 162 (15.2%) and Psychiatry 123 (11.6%). Median specialist response time was 0.9 days (range <1 hour-27 days), most consults (63.2%) required <10minutes to complete and 21/21(100%) specialist survey-respondents reported minimal workload burden. For 515/1064(48.4%) referrals, PCPs received advice for a new or additional course of action; 391/1064(36.7%) referrals resulted in an averted face-to-face specialist visit. In 9 specialties with complete data, the median wait-time was significantly less (p<0.001) for an eConsult (1 day, 95%CI:0.9-1.2) compared with a face-to-face referral (132 days; 95%CI:127-136). The majority (>93.3%) of PCPs rated eConsult as very good/excellent value for both patients and themselves. All specialist survey-respondents indicated eConsult should be a continued service. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Similar to adults, eConsult improves PCP access and timeliness to elective pediatric specialist advice and influences their care decisions, while reporting high end-user satisfaction. Further study is warranted to assess impact on resource utilization and clinical outcomes.
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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.