OBJECTIVES To evaluate an electronic patient referral system from one UK hospital Trust to community pharmacies across the North East of England. SETTING Two hospital sites in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and 207 community pharmacies. PARTICIPANTS Inpatients who were considered to benefit from on-going support and continuity of care after leaving hospital. INTERVENTION Electronic transmission of a...

We analyzed the impact of social networks on general practitioners' (GPs) referral behavior based on administrative panel data from 2,684,273 referrals to specialists made between 1998 and 2007. For the definition of social networks, we used information on the doctors' place and time of study and their hospital work history. We found that GPs referred more patients to specialists within their p...

BACKGROUND Despite increasing prevalence of palliative care (PC) services in cancer centers, most referrals to the service occur exceedingly late in the illness trajectory. Over the years, we have made several attempts to promote earlier patient access to our PC program, such as changing the name of our service from PC to supportive care (SC). This study was conducted to determine the use of PC...

An aging population is associated with an increased prevalence of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and depression. Important aspects of programmes targeted at older people are: to reach those at risk, effective screening, optimising advice, and referral to local interventions. We examined the effect of a preventive health consultation (PRIMUS), a multi-behavioural screening programme for perso...

OBJECTIVE To explore the possible causes for delay in diagnosis and treatment of head and neck cancer at Sarawak General Hospital (SGH). STUDY DESIGN This is a prospective study of time interval between onset of symptom, first medical consultation, first specialist clinic consultation, diagnosis and treatment of head and neck cancer in otorhinolaryngology head and neck (ORL-HNS) and dental cl...

BACKGROUND Canadian wait time data are available for the treatment of cancer and heart disease, as well as for joint replacement, cataract surgery and diagnostic imaging procedures. Wait times for gastroenterology consultation and procedures have not been studied, although digestive diseases pose a greater economic burden in Canada than cancer or heart disease. METHODS Specialist physicians c...