Thirty eight specialists in one district health authority were asked to take part in a questionnaire survey to assess the appropriateness of referral and the quality of the referral letter for 20 consecutive new patients each. A total of 705 new patient referrals to 13 specialties were included in the study. Twelve of the 38 specialists were randomly selected and their 234 new patient referral ...

OBJECTIVE To assess the frequency of barriers to specialty care and to assess which barriers are associated with an incomplete specialty referral (not attending a specialty visit when referred by a primary care provider) among children seen in community health centers. STUDY DESIGN Two months after their child's specialty referral, 341 parents completed telephone surveys assessing whether a s...

BACKGROUND The first-line treatment for symptomatic Morton's neuroma in our hospital is a perineural ultrasound-guided injection of corticosteroid and local anaesthetic (USI). The NHS has recently implemented 18-week referral-to-treatment targets. When GPs specifically suggest a diagnosis of Morton's neuroma there are two referral pathways in our hospital: direct referral to radiology for USI (...

The referral priority program—an emerging business practice adopted by a growing number of technology companies that manage a waitlist of customers—enables existing customers on the waitlist to gain priority access if they successfully refer new customers to the waitlist. Unlike more commonly used referral reward programs, this novel mechanism does not offer monetary compensation to referring c...

INTRODUCTION Health care delivery systems in rural areas face numerous challenges in meeting the community's needs. This study aimed to describe barriers of health care process in rural societies in Iran. METHODS In this qualitative study, 26 participants (21 rural health care providers and five rural patients) were selected through purposive sampling. The data was collected via semi-structur...