Improvement in medical consultation responses with a structured request form.

Physicians often do not provide adequate information regarding patients' medical conditions when presented with consultation requests (CR) generated by dental students and their instructors about the students' patients. We hypothesized that a structured CR form, which requests specific information by providing a checklist and/or closed-ended questions for physicians to answer, would lead to better communication and improved responses. We also hypothesized that providing in-service education to clinical faculty on the conditions that require and don't require CRs would reduce the number of unwarranted CRs sent to physicians. We assessed the responses obtained with the new form and compared them to findings over a similar period using our older, unstructured CR forms. We also evaluated the numbers of CRs written unnecessarily during both time periods. Improvements in the appropriateness of information provided by physicians were noted with the new CR forms for diabetes mellitus, hypertension, heart murmur, and anticoagulant therapy. The number of CRs written for conditions that did not need a consultation was approximately the same after provision of instruction as before. We conclude that structured CR forms improve the flow of information between dentists and physicians and should enhance student knowledge and skills in soliciting relevant information. Greater efforts must be taken to inform clinical faculty about the indications for CRs.