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Information in referrals to public outpatient specialist clinics for back pain: audit results and consensus recommendations
Author(s) -
Ross Lauren,
Gruchy Adam,
Phan Uyen M,
WarrenderSparkes Matthew,
Wicks Ian P,
Moi John HY
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/mja17.00813
Subject(s) - audit , medicine , library science , family medicine , history , management , computer science , economics
* Five most important criteria for specialists when prioritising patients for outpatient review. u L managed conservatively, but some require referral to specialist care. Our aim was to determine the clinical information that facilitates efficient patient triage to timely specialist review and should therefore be included in referral letters. We surveyed nine neurosurgeons, orthopaedic spinal surgeons, rheumatologists and physiotherapists in an online questionnaire. We also audited the clinical information in 300 randomly selected referrals for back pain to the Royal Melbourne Hospital between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2016. The audit was approved by the Melbourne Health Human Research Ethics Committee (reference, QA 2014148).