Abstract
Background: Good communication of medical professionals is an essential requirement for quality medical care. One means of this communication are letters of consultation request.Purpose: To investigate the quality of letters of consultation requests in terms of their effectiveness to establish proper communication of caring physician with consultants.Methods: All the Loghman Hakim Hospital's medical record which contained consultations for infectious disease from May 25, 2001 to November 25, 2001 were included. The records were examined for the inclusion of reason for referral, sufficient data in terms of history, therapeutic issues and paraclinic results and the recommendations regarding therapeutic issues including starting antibiotic therapy ,change of drug regimen, asking for one more follow up visit, recommending consultation with other specialist were extracted.Results: 110 files were studied with (49%) 54 cases , labeled “ urgent” and (23%) 25 cases , labeled “ Not urgent “ and 31 cases (28%) not determined . In only (29%) 32 cases the identification data of the patient was filled out completely . Only in less than (42% ) 46 cases , was the clinical information given in the letter satisfactory .Only in (44%) 49 cases was the main question of the consultation evident. In (94%) 104 cases , the recommendations given by the consultant were specific and clear cut. In 110 consultations the overall number of recommendations was 861( 8 recommendations for each consultation ).Conclusion: As the letter of consultation request play an important role specifically for patient with more complicated conditions measures should be taken to improve this competency.
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© 2003, Author(s). This open-access article is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which allows for unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.