[The general practitioner faced with the choice of hospitalization: an analysis of the data from the Follow-Up System computerized network]

Recenti Prog Med. 1997 Sep;88(9):373-82.
[Article in Italian]

Abstract

The Project "Informatization of the General Practitioner" aimed at networking the work stations of a randomized set of 150 general practitioners equipped with the "Follow-Up System" software, for the collection of information related to the activity carried out, to be electronically transferred to a central unit was developed in the frame of the finalized Project of the National Research Council: "Prevention and Control of the Disease Factors". During the project activity, a study on prescribed hospitalizations was carried out. The contents of items regarding hospitalization diagnosis show that diagnoses concerning diseases included in chapter ICD-9: "Symptoms, signs and morbid conditions not well defined" represent 30.3% of the total; most of these undefined syndromes can be identified under the item "abdominal pain" with 18.2% of cases. Obviously in the case of appendicitis (12.1% of hospitalizations) the hospitalization carried out by the physician resulted to be necessary, in the case of biliary lithiasis (8 cases, 7.4%), the physician could have treated the patient without hospitalization. The interest of such data is to induce a sort of provocation in order to observe, within 8% of hospitalizations following abdominal pain, what rate of hospitalization could be avoided, giving the adequate support to the general practitioner in order to decide the behaviour to have.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • English Abstract
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Child
  • Child, Preschool
  • Computer Communication Networks / statistics & numerical data*
  • Diagnosis
  • Family Practice / statistics & numerical data*
  • Female
  • Follow-Up Studies
  • Hospitalization / statistics & numerical data*
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Italy
  • Middle Aged
  • Software / statistics & numerical data