Improving collaboration between specialists and general practitioners in services for individuals with chronic spinal cord injury living in rural areas of Switzerland: Baseline results from the SCI-Co study

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Context/Objective

Strategies to combine primary and specialized care are crucial to meet the needs of individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) located in rural areas. We explored the collaboration between general practitioners (GPs) and SCI specialists who will participate in an intervention study to improve their collaboration.

Design

A questionnaire survey from August to October 2020.

Setting

Primary Care, Specialized SCI care.

Participants

Eight GPs and 13 SCI specialists.

Interventions

Baseline results from the SCI-Co study.

Outcome Measures

N/A.

Results

Overall, satisfaction ratings for the collaboration between GPs and SCI specialists were high, and all physicians agreed that they work together well. Especially, SCI specialists were satisfied in collaborating with GPs. Despite Switzerland’s fragmented primary and secondary care system, only a few physicians reported about issues with delays and waiting lists. While GPs wanted to improve the quality of their referral, most SCI specialists reported being content with it. GPs were also discontent about discharge organization by specialists.

Conclusion

Satisfaction with collaboration was high, both in GPs and specialists. Areas for improvement include discharge and referral processes.

Related collections

Most cited references 26

Record: found
Abstract: not found
Article: not found

Continuity of care: a multidisciplinary review.

J. L. Haggerty (2003)

0 comments Cited 243 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Deficits in communication and information transfer between hospital-based and primary care physicians: implications for patient safety and continuity of care.

Sunil Kripalani, Frank Lefèvre, Christopher Phillips … (2007)

Delayed or inaccurate communication between hospital-based and primary care physicians at hospital discharge may negatively affect continuity of care and contribute to adverse events. To characterize the prevalence of deficits in communication and information transfer at hospital discharge and to identify interventions to improve this process. MEDLINE (through November 2006), Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and hand search of article bibliographies. Observational studies investigating communication and information transfer at hospital discharge (n = 55) and controlled studies evaluating the efficacy of interventions to improve information transfer (n = 18). Data from observational studies were extracted on the availability, timeliness, content, and format of discharge communications, as well as primary care physician satisfaction. Results of interventions were summarized by their effect on timeliness, accuracy, completeness, and overall quality of the information transfer. Direct communication between hospital physicians and primary care physicians occurred infrequently (3%-20%). The availability of a discharge summary at the first postdischarge visit was low (12%-34%) and remained poor at 4 weeks (51%-77%), affecting the quality of care in approximately 25% of follow-up visits and contributing to primary care physician dissatisfaction. Discharge summaries often lacked important information such as diagnostic test results (missing from 33%-63%), treatment or hospital course (7%-22%), discharge medications (2%-40%), test results pending at discharge (65%), patient or family counseling (90%-92%), and follow-up plans (2%-43%). Several interventions, including computer-generated discharge summaries and using patients as couriers, shortened the delivery time of discharge communications. Use of standardized formats to highlight the most pertinent information improved the perceived quality of documents. Deficits in communication and information transfer at hospital discharge are common and may adversely affect patient care. Interventions such as computer-generated summaries and standardized formats may facilitate more timely transfer of pertinent patient information to primary care physicians and make discharge summaries more consistently available during follow-up care.

0 comments Cited 193 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: found

Is Open Access

A model and typology of collaboration between professionals in healthcare organizations

Danielle D’Amour, Lise Goulet, Jean-François Labadie … (2008)

Background The new forms of organization of healthcare services entail the development of new clinical practices that are grounded in collaboration. Despite recent advances in research on the subject of collaboration, there is still a need for a better understanding of collaborative processes and for conceptual tools to help healthcare professionals develop collaboration amongst themselves in complex systems. This study draws on D'Amour's structuration model of collaboration to analyze healthcare facilities offering perinatal services in four health regions in the province of Quebec. The objectives are to: 1) validate the indicators of the structuration model of collaboration; 2) evaluate interprofessional and interorganizational collaboration in four health regions; and 3) propose a typology of collaboration Methods A multiple-case research strategy was used. The cases were the healthcare facilities that offer perinatal services in four health regions in the province of Quebec (Canada). The data were collected through 33 semi-structured interviews with healthcare managers and professionals working in the four regions. Written material was also analyzed. The data were subjected to a "mixed" inductive-deductive analysis conducted in two main stages: an internal analysis of each case followed by a cross-sectional analysis of all the cases. Results The collaboration indicators were shown to be valid, although some changes were made to three of them. Analysis of the data showed great variation in the level of collaboration between the cases and on each dimension. The results suggest a three-level typology of collaboration based on the ten indicators: active collaboration, developing collaboration and potential collaboration. Conclusion The model and the typology make it possible to analyze collaboration and identify areas for improvement. Researchers can use the indicators to determine the intensity of collaboration and link it to clinical outcomes. Professionals and administrators can use the model to perform a diagnostic of collaboration and implement interventions to intensify it.

0 comments Cited 172 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): J Spinal Cord Med

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): J Spinal Cord Med

Title: The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

ISSN (Print): 1079-0268

ISSN (Electronic): 2045-7723

Publication date (Electronic, pub): 28 November 2022

Publication date (Electronic, collection): 2024

Publication date PMC-release: 28 November 2022

Volume: 47

Issue: 3

Pages: 423-431

Affiliations

[1 ]Center for Primary and Community Care, Department of Health Sciences and Medicine, University of Lucerne , Lucerne, Switzerland

[2 ]Swiss Paraplegic Research , Nottwil, Switzerland

Author notes

Correspondence to: Rebecca Tomaschek, Center for Primary and Community Care, Department of Health Sciences and Medicine, University of Lucerne , Frohburgstrasse 2, Lucerne 6002, Switzerland. Email: rebecca.tomaschek@ 123456unilu.ch

Author information

Rebecca Tomaschek https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4626-248X

Armin Gemperli https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2363-0625

Stefan Essig https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3228-7010

Article

Publisher ID: 2097996

DOI: 10.1080/10790268.2022.2097996

PMC ID: 11044760

PubMed ID: 36441044

SO-VID: fd4df104-4a7b-42eb-8c1f-d25a1620a92d

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

Improving collaboration between specialists and general practitioners in services for individuals with chronic spinal cord injury living in rural areas of Switzerland: Baseline results from the SCI-Co study

Read this article at

Abstract

Context/Objective

Design

Setting

Participants

Interventions

Outcome Measures

Results

Conclusion

Related collections

Karger: Neurology and Neuroscience

Most cited references 26

Continuity of care: a multidisciplinary review.

Deficits in communication and information transfer between hospital-based and primary care physicians: implications for patient safety and continuity of care.

A model and typology of collaboration between professionals in healthcare organizations

Author and article information

Journal

Affiliations

Author notes

Author information

Article

History

Page count

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 63

Most referenced authors 279