[Communication between general practitioners and hospital interns at emergency admissions]

Communication between general practitioners and hospital interns serves as basis for the first in-hospital treatment of emergency admitted patients. The purpose of this study is to describe how this communication currently functions in Norway. The study was carried out by personal and focus group interviews with general practitioners and hospital interns, and questionnaire responses from 532 doctors. Both general practitioners (93%) and hospital interns (84%) claim that the general practitioner's information is usually valuable for the initial hospital treatment. 89% of the general practitioners and 65% of the interns (p < 0.01) responded affirmatively to general statements characterising the existing communication as good. However, 58% of the interns are of the opinion that there are many unnecessary referrals to the hospitals, and 47% respond that the general practitioners often refer a patient in order to get rid of a problem they should have been able to handle themselves. The interns single out simple problems with the referral letters, such as illegible handwriting, and left-out or unsorted information. This critical view can in part be explained by the sense of isolation, lack of autonomy and high work load that interns experience in their obligatory hospital year. We recommended that interns are invited to participate when hospital doctors and general practitioners meet.