The barriers to care coordination: study probes why emergency physicians and primary care physicians don't talk to one another.

摘要

Call any physician's office outside of business hours and the recorded message will probably state, "If this is a medical emergency, go to your nearest emergency department [ED] or call 911." And yet, emergency and primary care physicians (PCPs) don't have much chance to compare notes, leading to duplicated tests and scrambling to locate information about past visits. This communication gulf has been studied surprisingly little, given the effect it has on costs and quality of care. A recent study by the National Institute for Health Care Reform found that despite their best intentions, emergency physicians and PCPs face any number of barriers to communicating well about their patients.