Registration of activities performed by general practitioners

• Published in: Tidsskrift for den Norske Lægeforening Vol. 121; no. 23; pp. 2730 - 2731
• Main Authors: Brügger, E A, Jøsendal, O
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Norwegian
• Published: Norway 30-09-2001
• Subjects: Emergencies - epidemiology; Family Practice - organization & administration; Family Practice - statistics & numerical data; Humans; Night Care; Norway - epidemiology; Patient Acceptance of Health Care - statistics & numerical data; Problem Solving; Registries; Remote Consultation; Task Performance and Analysis; Telephone; Norway
• ISSN: 0029-2001

We studied what kind of action general practitioners in a Norwegian rural community choose to take in order to solve problems raised by patients who contact the primary health service off-hours. Problems are solved either on the phone or by allowing the patient to consult the doctor in the surgery, by a home call, or by an emergency call with ambulance.
The community has a population of 4,556. All five GPs in the community registered all off-hour patient contacts over a period of six weeks (off-hours defined as the period from 3.30 PM to 8.00 AM on week-days, plus the weekend).
450 patients contacts were registered. 33% were solved on the phone, 48% through consultations in the surgery, 18% by home calls. Only two out of 450 contacts were emergencies.
GPs performing off-hour services serve their patients with ordinary consultations. Less than 1% of patient contacts were actual emergencies.