Oral Medicine referrals at a hospital-based practice in the United States
| Autor: | Mark A. Lerman, Shannon Stock, Sook-Bin Woo, Stephen T. Sonis, Alessandro Villa, Ali Aboalela, Nathaniel S. Treister |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2015 |
| Předmět: |
Adult
Male Orofacial pain medicine.medical_specialty Adolescent Referral Oral Medicine Specialty MEDLINE Pathology and Forensic Medicine Presenting problem Surveys and Questionnaires Ambulatory Care medicine Humans Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging Dentistry (miscellaneous) Practice Patterns Physicians' Medical diagnosis Referral and Consultation Aged Practice Patterns Dentists' Retrospective Studies Aged 80 and over business.industry Retrospective cohort study Middle Aged United States Family medicine Female Surgery Oral Surgery medicine.symptom Mouth Diseases business Oral medicine Boston |
| Zdroj: | Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral Radiology. 119:423-429 |
| ISSN: | 2212-4403 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.oooo.2015.01.003 |
| Popis: | Objective The objective of this study was to characterize the outpatient oral medicine (OM) clinic at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), with particular emphasis on patient demographic characteristics and referral patterns. Materials and Methods A retrospective case record review of all initial consultations with OM experts at BWH from 2008 to 2010 was conducted. Data included demographic information, type of medical insurance, reason for referral, referring doctor's specialty, and distance between the patient's home and the referring doctor as well as BWH, number of prior doctors seen for the presenting problem (per patient report), tests ordered at the consultation visit, and clinical diagnoses. Results There were 1043 new outpatient consultation visits. Patients lived a median distance of 9.5 miles from the referring doctor and 18.9 miles from BWH and saw a median of one doctor (range 0-9) before consultation. Two thirds of patients were referred by physicians. The most common diagnoses included immune-mediated mucosal conditions (27.2%), orofacial pain disorders (25.1%), benign tumors or neoplasms (10.3%), and dysplasia and cancerous conditions (7.6%). Biopsy was the most frequent test performed at consultation. Conclusions Patients with oral conditions often see more than one doctor, before being referred to an OM expert and typically travel twice the distance to the expert compared with that between their home and the referring doctor. Equal efforts should be made to increase awareness of the importance of the specialty of OM among dentists, physicians, and the public. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|
Full Text from ScienceDirect