Inpatient Curbside Consultation in Psychiatry: A Primer

This perspective summarizes the literature on curbside consultation (CC) across medical specialties to develop recommendations for its use in inpatient consultation-liaison psychiatry. We address CC's benefits, challenges, and limitations in clinical practice.

We conducted a narrative review via PubMed using the terms "curbside" AND "consult," and included English-language articles that discuss CC use in any setting, within any discipline, and for any purpose. Then we screened included articles for references that met the same criteria.

We included 43 articles and extracted data from 25 of the included studies. The literature indicates that CCs can serve as valuable tools for clinicians seeking informal advice on patient management or wanting to increase general medical knowledge. Significant challenges regarding CC use exist, however, including the potential for inaccurate data exchange, consultant time burden, lack of reimbursement, and liability concerns.

While CCs facilitate communication and collaboration among health care professionals, their use requires careful consideration based on the clinical situation. This perspective provides guidance for inpatient psychiatric consultants on assessing CC request appropriateness and effective CC performance in inpatient settings.