General practitioners’ knowledge and use of an urban Australian hospital General Practice Liaison service: A qualitative study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background and objectiveStrong integration between primary and secondary healthcare is essential.Health services across Australia have developed General Practice Liaison (GPL) services to improve communication and understanding between general practitioners (GPs) and hospitals.The aim of this study was to explore GPs' experiences of and interaction with a health service's GPL service and capture perspectives concerning future service expansion. MethodsThis descriptive qualitative study used semi-structured interviews with 10 GPs in the catchment area of a large urban health service in Melbourne in 2018.Data were analysed thematically. ResultsWhile GPs accepted the value of a GPL service, few had direct experience.Acknowledging the challenge of negotiating complex healthcare systems, they saw GPL services ideally staffed by a health professional, not necessarily a GP. DiscussionThe results provide insight into what GPs want from a GPL service.This can inform development of the GPL role within health services.STRONG INTEGRATION between primary and secondary healthcare is fundamental for effective delivery of quality healthcare.1,2 Poor communication between healthcare sectors can lead to adverse events within both general practice and hospitals.[3][4][5] The growing burden of chronic disease and the ageing population increases the need for effective integration between health sectors.1,[6][7][8] General Practice Liaison (GPL), defined as being a process for communication and integration between general practitioners (GPs) and hospitals, is one of a range of approaches that has evolved in Australia to help better integrate primary and secondary care.7,9 GPL units are generally situated within hospitals, although some have a broader focus on liaison between acute and primary care.10 GPL staff undertake a range of activities to 'improve communication and transfer of information between GPs and hospitals, for the ultimate benefit of patient care'.11,12 These include improving information flow, care processes and capacity across both sectors; for example, easing the process of GP referrals to non-GP specialist clinics, and optimising communication during hospital discharge.7,11 The previous Commonwealth Divisions of General Practice program (1992-2011) was the impetus for improving integration between general practice and hospitals in Australia, which provided the basis for a range of GPL services.11,13,14 GPL services have shown promise in improving information flow, communication between health services and coordination of care between primary and secondary care.10,11 In Victoria, GPL services have been incorporated into many healthcare services since the 1990s and were centrally coordinated under the then Victorian Department of Human Services (DHS) between 2007 and 2012.11 During this time, more than 20 health services in Victoria had a GPL unit, with most staffed by GPs or by staff with backgrounds in nursing, administration, community development and health promotion.11 Despite this activity, little is known of GP experiences of, or aspirations for, GPL services.The aim of this study was to 1) explore GPs' experiences of interaction with a hospital health service and its GPL services and 2) investigate GPs' perspectives on the shape of a potential expansion of the GPL role within this health service. Methods DesignThis qualitative study used semi-structured, face-to-face and General practitioners' knowledge and use of an urban Australian hospital General Practice Liaison service
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.009 | 0.014 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".