The impact of COVID-19 on referrals among general practitioners and specialists in Shanghai, China.

Primary health care research & development Pub Date : 2024-11-20 DOI:10.1017/S1463423624000525

Zhongqing Xu, Jingchun Fan, Dandan Shi, Jingjing Ding, Jun Zhou, Xianzhen Feng, Brett D Hambly, Kun Tao, Shisan Bao

{"title":"The impact of COVID-19 on referrals among general practitioners and specialists in Shanghai, China.","authors":"Zhongqing Xu, Jingchun Fan, Dandan Shi, Jingjing Ding, Jun Zhou, Xianzhen Feng, Brett D Hambly, Kun Tao, Shisan Bao","doi":"10.1017/S1463423624000525","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted patient's visits to general practitioners (GPs). However, it is unclear what the impact of COVID-19 has been on the interaction among the local primary care clinics, the GP Department within the hospital and specialists.Methods: The interaction among GPs referring to hospital-based specialists and specialists to local doctors was determined, comparing pre-pandemic 2019 and 2020 during the pandemic.Results: Reduced referrals from GPs to specialists were consistent with the reduction in specialist referrals back to the local doctors, which dropped by approximately 50% in 2020, particularly in the two most common chronic conditions (hypertension and diabetes mellitus).Discussion: Reduced referral of patients from local clinics to Tongren Hospital is probably due to the extensive online training provided to the local GPs to become more competent in handling local patients via telehealth. Our data provide some insight to assist in combatting the pandemic of COVID-19, offering objective evidence of the impact of COVID-19 on patient management by GPs.","PeriodicalId":74493,"journal":{"name":"Primary health care research & development","volume":"25 ","pages":"e63"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Primary health care research & development","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1463423624000525","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted patient's visits to general practitioners (GPs). However, it is unclear what the impact of COVID-19 has been on the interaction among the local primary care clinics, the GP Department within the hospital and specialists.

Methods: The interaction among GPs referring to hospital-based specialists and specialists to local doctors was determined, comparing pre-pandemic 2019 and 2020 during the pandemic.

Results: Reduced referrals from GPs to specialists were consistent with the reduction in specialist referrals back to the local doctors, which dropped by approximately 50% in 2020, particularly in the two most common chronic conditions (hypertension and diabetes mellitus).

Discussion: Reduced referral of patients from local clinics to Tongren Hospital is probably due to the extensive online training provided to the local GPs to become more competent in handling local patients via telehealth. Our data provide some insight to assist in combatting the pandemic of COVID-19, offering objective evidence of the impact of COVID-19 on patient management by GPs.

查看原文本刊更多论文

COVID-19 对中国上海全科医生和专科医生转诊的影响。

背景：COVID-19 大流行影响了病人去看全科医生（GP）。然而，目前还不清楚 COVID-19 对当地初级保健诊所、医院内的全科医生部门和专科医生之间的互动有何影响：方法：比较大流行前的 2019 年和大流行期间的 2020 年，确定全科医生向医院专科医生转诊和专科医生向当地医生转诊之间的互动情况：结果：全科医生向专科医生转诊的减少与专科医生向当地医生转诊的减少是一致的，2020 年专科医生向当地医生的转诊减少了约 50%，尤其是两种最常见的慢性病（高血压和糖尿病）：讨论：当地诊所向铜仁医院转诊的病人减少，可能是由于当地全科医生接受了广泛的在线培训，以提高通过远程医疗处理当地病人的能力。我们的数据提供了COVID-19对全科医生管理病人的影响的客观证据，为对抗COVID-19的流行提供了一些启示。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Primary health care research & development

自引率

0.00%

发文量