OBJECTIVES The objective of physician continuing medical education (CME) is to help them keep abreast of advances in patient care, to accept new more-beneficial care, and discontinue use of existing lower-benefit diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. The goal of this review was to examine effectiveness of current CME tools and techniques in changing physician clinical practices and improvin...

Doctors are inundated with medical information, some inadequately evidence-based, much of it captured in clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). The Ontario Guidelines Advisory Committee (GAC) selects topic areas, searches for all CPGs on the topic, and reviews them using the AGREE Instrument. Based in large part on the AGREE score, the GAC summarises one guideline in each topic area and mounts it...

BACKGROUND In this study we explored the challenges to establishing a community of practice (CoP) to address standards in general practice. We focused on the issue of improving referral letters which are the main form of communication between general practitioners (GPs) and specialists. There is evidence to suggest that the information relayed to specialists at the time of referral could be imp...

BACKGROUND To test seven different strategies for recruitment in a randomized controlled trial, to report documented response data from each strategy, and to discuss recruitment challenges. METHODS We used 5 opt-in (potential participants have to do something active to contact or be contacted by the researcher) and 2 opt-out (potential participants have the option to decline being contacted a...

The development and implementation of quality referral systems reflects sound national health planning. This review appraised the data on referral systems, in particular psychiatric referrals, with special reference to Saudi Arabia. A computer search was made of relevant literature in the past 2 decades. The rate and process of referring patients through referral letters varies globally across ...

BACKGROUND Early access to tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment remains a challenge in developing countries. General use of informal providers such as storekeepers is common. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness and acceptability of a storekeeper-based referral system for TB suspects in urban settings of Lilongwe, Malawi. METHODS The referral system intervention was implem...

BACKGROUND Access to specialists is mediated by general practitioners in many countries. In these settings, specialists rely on information in referral letters when deciding which cases to schedule for their clinics. METHOD Two-hundred and seven consecutive referral letters to gastroenterologists were scored for the amount of information relayed to the specialist, using a published schedule. ...

Some basic features of the prehospital management of children with acute bacterial meningitis were ascertained by a retrospective review of case notes. A diagnosis of intracranial infection was considered in 63% of general practitioners' referral letters and was more often considered for older than younger children. 47% of children had received antibacterial chemotherapy before hospital admissi...

INTRODUCTION Communication between medical specialists and primary care providers in the community plays a pertinent role in patient care and doctor education. Referral and reply letters are the most common means by which doctors exchange information. Much of clinician time is spent writing letters, but the information or the format in which the letter is written may not meet the needs of the r...