ArticlePrimary health care research & development2023
Agreement and consistency in the triaging of musculoskeletal primary care referrals by vetting clinicians using a knowledge-based triage tool.
Article in Primary health care research & development, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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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.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed, 0 citations in OpenAlex.
- Exploring Primary Care Physicians' Current Referral Practices to Physiotherapy and Specialized Care for Musculoskeletal Conditions: A Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPrimary care referrals received by secondary care services are vetted or triaged to pathways best suited for patients' needs. If knowledge-based triaging is used by vetting clinicians, accuracy is required to avoid incorrect decisions being made. With limited evidence to support best practice, we aimed to evaluate consistency across vetting clinicians' decisions and their agreement with a criterion decision.
methodsTwenty-nine trained vetting clinicians (18 female) representative of pay grades independently triaged five musculoskeletal physiotherapy referral cases into one of 10 decisions using an internally developed triage tool. Agreement across clinicians' decisions between and within cases was assessed using Fleiss's kappa overall and within pay grade. Proportions of triage decisions consistent with criterion decisions were assessed using Cochran's
resultsClinician agreement was fair for all cases (
conclusionsAgreement and consistency in decisions were variable using the tool. Ensuring referrer information is accurate is vital, as is developing, automating and auditing standards for certain referrals with clear pathways. But we argue that variable vetting outcomes might represent healthy pathway abundance and should not simply be automated in response to perceived inefficiencies.
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Registered trials
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