ArticleBMC family practice2020
Specialist LINK and primary care network clinical pathways - a new approach to patient referral: a cross-sectional survey of awareness, utilization and usability among family physicians in Calgary.
Article in BMC family practice, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization of Decision Support Systems for Healthcare Referral Strategies.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Adoption and sustainability of a virtual interprofessional team for primary care in Ontario: a qualitative study.BMC primary care · 2026Article
- Primary Care Support Tools for Digestive Health Care: A Mixed Method Study.Canadian journal of gastroenterology & hepatology · 2024Article
- Development of an interdisciplinary early rheumatoid arthritis care pathway.BMC rheumatology · 2022Article
- Decision making under uncertainty in the diagnosis and management of Alzheimer's Disease in primary care: A study protocol applying concepts from neuroeconomics.Frontiers in medicine · 2022Article
- Integrated virtual medical consultations versus traditional clinic care in a public and a private outpatient service.Integrated healthcare journal · 2022Article
- Patient Suffering in Chronic Digestive Diseases: Will Primary Care-Specialist Collaboration With Effective Interactive Communication and Integrative Medicine in the Plan of Care Improve Quality of Life?Journal of patient experience · 2020Article
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSpecialist LINK is a real-time, non-urgent telephone collaboration line designed to link family doctors and specialists. The purpose was to reduce wait times, improve efficiency and enhance the coordination of patient care through enhanced communication between primary and specialty care. The aim of this study was to determine the awareness and utilization of Specialist LINK and Primary Care Network (PCN) Clinical Pathways among family physicians.
methodsA family physician experience cross-sectional survey was conducted from March to May 2018 in Calgary and Area. The survey was designed to assess family physicians' awareness and utilization of Specialist LINK and PCN Clinical Pathways. We also used a 1-10 scale for respondents to rate the utility of Specialist LINK (1 was least useful and 10 represented highly useful). To obtain a true representative sample, family physicians were selected through a random sampling method. We applied multiple approaches to ensure a high response rate: paper survey, telephone reminders, and an on-site survey for non-responders.
resultsA total of 251 participants completed the survey of the 650 randomly selected family physicians (Response rate≈39%). Eighty-nine percent of the family physicians were aware of Specialist LINK [95% Confidence Interval (84-92%)]. The average rating was 8.1 (on a scale of 1-10) for the usefulness of Specialist LINK. We found that the odds of being aware of Specialist LINK were two times higher in female family physicians compared to male physicians. Also, those with less than 5 years of experience, the odds of being aware of Specialist LINK were around five times higher compared to those with 5 or more years of experience. Fifty-five percent of family physicians were aware of PCN Clinical Pathways (95% CI = 48-60%); of those, 82% were accessing and following PCN Clinical Pathways in their clinical practice. The average rating was 7.9 (on a scale of 1-10) for the usefulness of PCN Clinical Pathways.
conclusionMost of the respondents in Calgary and area were aware of Specialist LINK and a large proportion of them were using it to access advice for their patients.
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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.