Infectious disease specialist telephone consultations requested by general practitioners

Abstract

Background: Infectious diseases (ID) make up a substantial part of a general practitioner's (GP's) workload. GPs frequently solicit ID specialists requesting advice on managing their patients with ID. The objectives of this study were to examine GP reasons for soliciting ID consultations and to assess the GPs’ and specialists’ opinions of the ID consultation service. Methods: This was a prospective study of consecutive solicited ID consultations requested by GPs from the ID specialists of a 2200-bed university-affiliated hospital, conducted between October 2008 and March 2009. Data related to GP characteristics, their reasons for requesting the consultation, the recommendations given by the specialists, and the specialists’ perceptions of the exchange were collected. GPs were asked to report their adherence to recommendations and their perceptions of the consultations. Results: A mean of 57 telephone consultations per month were requested by GPs during the study period. ID specialist recommendations were related to antibiotic treatment (66.2%), diagnostic or monitoring tests (46.5%), and a subsequent formal consultation or hospitalization (29.6%). The reasons reported for GPs requesting an ID consultation were related to patient management (96.5%), rapidity of access (86.3%), and quality of care improvement (84.2%). GPs were satisfied with the telephone consultations in 97.9% of cases and ID specialists in 94.7%. Conclusions: Telephone consultations with ID specialists were widely appreciated by GPs, probably due to the accessibility of these specialists. Further study is needed to assess the effects of these telephone consultations on quality of care.

Keywords::

• Infectious disease specialists
• general practitioners
• informal consultations
• satisfaction
• recommendations

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the French Ministry of Health (grant 011PR07). The funding source had no role in the design and conduct of the study; the collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; or the preparation, review, and approval of the manuscript. Ms Linda Northrup (English Solutions, Voiron, France) provided assistance in editing the manuscript.

Declaration of interest: The authors have no conflict of interest with this paper.

Supplementary material available online