Impact of referral templates on patient experience of the referral and care process: a cluster randomised trial

Objectives To evaluate if a referral intervention improves the patient experience of the referral and treatment process. Setting Interface between 14 primary care surgeries and a district general hospital. Participants The 14 general practitioner (GP) surgeries (7 intervention, 7 control) in the are...

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Published in:BMJ Open
Main Authors: Wahlberg, Henrik, Braaten, Tonje, Broderstad, Ann Ragnhild
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: BMJ Publishing Group Ltd 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:http://bmjopen.bmj.com/cgi/content/short/6/10/e011651
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-011651
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spelling fthighwire:oai:open-archive.highwire.org:bmjopen:6/10/e011651 2023-05-15T17:39:23+02:00 Impact of referral templates on patient experience of the referral and care process: a cluster randomised trial Wahlberg, Henrik Braaten, Tonje Broderstad, Ann Ragnhild 2016-10-24 09:12:27.0 text/html http://bmjopen.bmj.com/cgi/content/short/6/10/e011651 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-011651 en eng BMJ Publishing Group Ltd http://bmjopen.bmj.com/cgi/content/short/6/10/e011651 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-011651 Copyright (C) 2016, British Medical Journal Publishing Group Research TEXT 2016 fthighwire https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-011651 2016-11-16T19:01:51Z Objectives To evaluate if a referral intervention improves the patient experience of the referral and treatment process. Setting Interface between 14 primary care surgeries and a district general hospital. Participants The 14 general practitioner (GP) surgeries (7 intervention, 7 control) in the area around the University Hospital of North Norway Harstad were randomised and all completed the study. Consecutive individual patients were recruited at their hospital appointment. A total of 500 patients were recruited with 281 in the intervention and 219 in the control arm. Interventions Dissemination of referral templates for 4 diagnostic groups (dyspepsia, suspected colorectal cancer, chest pain and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) coupled with intermittent surgery visits by study personnel. The control arm continued standard referral practice. The intervention was in use for 2.5 years. Outcome The main outcome was a quality indicator score. This paper reports a secondary outcome, the patient experience, as measured by self-report questionnaires. GPs in the intervention group could not be blinded. Patients were blinded to intervention status. Analysis was based on single-question comparison with a questionnaire subscore used to assess the effect of clustering. Results On the individual questions, overall satisfaction was very high with minor differences between the intervention and control group. Interestingly, the most negative responses, in both groups concerned questions relating to patient interaction and information. Very little evidence of clustering was found with an estimated intracluster correlations coefficient at 1.21e−11. Conclusions In total, this indicates no clear effect of the implementation of referral templates on the patient experience, in a setting of generally high patient satisfaction. Trial registration number NCT01470963 Results. Text North Norway HighWire Press (Stanford University) Norway BMJ Open 6 10 e011651
institution Open Polar
collection HighWire Press (Stanford University)
op_collection_id fthighwire
language English
topic Research
spellingShingle Research
Wahlberg, Henrik
Braaten, Tonje
Broderstad, Ann Ragnhild
Impact of referral templates on patient experience of the referral and care process: a cluster randomised trial
topic_facet Research
description Objectives To evaluate if a referral intervention improves the patient experience of the referral and treatment process. Setting Interface between 14 primary care surgeries and a district general hospital. Participants The 14 general practitioner (GP) surgeries (7 intervention, 7 control) in the area around the University Hospital of North Norway Harstad were randomised and all completed the study. Consecutive individual patients were recruited at their hospital appointment. A total of 500 patients were recruited with 281 in the intervention and 219 in the control arm. Interventions Dissemination of referral templates for 4 diagnostic groups (dyspepsia, suspected colorectal cancer, chest pain and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) coupled with intermittent surgery visits by study personnel. The control arm continued standard referral practice. The intervention was in use for 2.5 years. Outcome The main outcome was a quality indicator score. This paper reports a secondary outcome, the patient experience, as measured by self-report questionnaires. GPs in the intervention group could not be blinded. Patients were blinded to intervention status. Analysis was based on single-question comparison with a questionnaire subscore used to assess the effect of clustering. Results On the individual questions, overall satisfaction was very high with minor differences between the intervention and control group. Interestingly, the most negative responses, in both groups concerned questions relating to patient interaction and information. Very little evidence of clustering was found with an estimated intracluster correlations coefficient at 1.21e−11. Conclusions In total, this indicates no clear effect of the implementation of referral templates on the patient experience, in a setting of generally high patient satisfaction. Trial registration number NCT01470963 Results.
format Text
author Wahlberg, Henrik
Braaten, Tonje
Broderstad, Ann Ragnhild
author_facet Wahlberg, Henrik
Braaten, Tonje
Broderstad, Ann Ragnhild
author_sort Wahlberg, Henrik
title Impact of referral templates on patient experience of the referral and care process: a cluster randomised trial
title_short Impact of referral templates on patient experience of the referral and care process: a cluster randomised trial
title_full Impact of referral templates on patient experience of the referral and care process: a cluster randomised trial
title_fullStr Impact of referral templates on patient experience of the referral and care process: a cluster randomised trial
title_full_unstemmed Impact of referral templates on patient experience of the referral and care process: a cluster randomised trial
title_sort impact of referral templates on patient experience of the referral and care process: a cluster randomised trial
publisher BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
publishDate 2016
url http://bmjopen.bmj.com/cgi/content/short/6/10/e011651
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-011651
geographic Norway
geographic_facet Norway
genre North Norway
genre_facet North Norway
op_relation http://bmjopen.bmj.com/cgi/content/short/6/10/e011651
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-011651
op_rights Copyright (C) 2016, British Medical Journal Publishing Group
op_doi https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-011651
container_title BMJ Open
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