Appointment systems in general practice. How patients use them.

Appointment systems in general practice. Do patients like them, and how do they affect work load?

Sharing control of appointment length with patients in general practice.

BACKGROUND There is little published research into the impact, on both doctor and patient, of handing over responsibility for choosing appointment length to the patient. AIM To investigate what impact giving patients control of their appointment length has on the patient and doctor experience. DESIGN AND SETTING A qualitative study in a single medical practice in Inverness, Scotland. METH...

Off-label prescriptions: how to identify them, frame them, announce them and monitor them in practice?

Following the Mediator crisis and the passage of the Health and Safety Law of December 2011, off-label prescriptions are a real concern shared by all those involved in healthcare system. Off-label, in the strictest sense of the term, is defined as all prescriptions that do not correspond to the summary of product characteristics (SPC), particularly those that fail to comply with the indications...

Impact of same-day appointments on patient satisfaction with general practice appointment systems.

Following recent concerns about patients' inability to book appointments in advance, this study examined the relationship between the proportion of GP appointments reserved for same-day booking, and patient satisfaction with appointment systems. In a survey of 12,825 patients in 47 practices, it was found that a 10% increase in the proportion of same-day appointments was associated with an 8% r...

How can evidence-based medicine help patients in general practice?

Family doctors are generalise: any experience which an individual perceives as problematic can become the legitimate concern of a GP, if it is brought up in a consultation. One of the fundamental tasks of the GP is to interpret a person's story. Here, the doctor tries to establish if the person's sense of unease suggests the onset of a discrete identifiable disease, or has its origins in other ...