Spectrum of advice and curbside consultations of infectious diseases specialists

Curbside consultation (CC) of infectious diseases specialists for advice is very frequent but the corresponding workload has rarely been assessed. This activity is mostly oral (phone or direct contact) and poorly quantifiable because it is not charged. We had for aim to evaluate this activity in a French teaching hospital.

We recorded all CCs given during a 2.5-year period, from mid-2011 to the end of 2013.

During the study period, 6789 CCs were recorded (2715 per year), or slightly more than 10 per day. These CCs were divided in 676 travel recommendations and 6113 for other reasons. They were mostly given by phone (77.4%). Most demands came from our hospital (61.4%), followed by community family physicians and specialist (27.1%), other local hospitals (6.5%) and clinics (4.3%). All the departments in our hospital consulted us for advice at least once and answers were mainly given by phone (70.1%) and at bedside (30.5%). The answers were principally advice (50.8%), modification of antibiotic prescription (22.9%), initiation of antibiotic course (14.8%), maintaining the same treatment (6.2%), and stopping antibiotics (4.3%). CCs accounted for 20% of clinical work for 1 physician. If the CCs in our hospital had been paid, our department would have received an additional 77,000€ in revenue.

This curbside activity is very important and time-consuming for infectious diseases specialists, but it is currently not acknowledged or rewarded.