Assuring safety and efficacy of nurse triage for electronic consultation to improve access to specialty care

Dermatology E-Consult: Leveraging technology to reduce barriers to pediatric dermatology care at school-based health centers

This case-study article describes an e-consult dermatology program launched at 5 school-based health centers within a Connecticut FQHC serving 106,000 medically underserved patients across more than 150 school-based sites, illustrating through a patient case example how the store-and-forward e-consult model helps close pediatric dermatology access gaps for underserved students. You can access the article here.

Impact of E-Consults on Clinical Care in Primary Care: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Primary Care Provider Behavior

This 2023 study analyzed a year’s worth of e-consults at a multi-site Texas health center, examining content and quality of the e-consults, plus chart reviews of a subsample to see whether primary care providers actually implemented specialists’ recommendations within 90 days, supplemented by interviews with providers about their ability and willingness to follow through on … Read more

The Impact of E-Consults on Access to Specialty Care for the Uninsured in Rural Texas

This 2022 study by Anderson et al. evaluated the impact of e-consults across four specialties—cardiology, gastroenterology, rheumatology, and endocrinology—implemented in a large, multi-site federally qualified health center, assessing whether the program improved access to specialty care for uninsured patients in rural/central Texas. You can access the article here.

Examining the Role of a Comprehensive E-Consult System to Enhance Access to Nephrology Care

This study is a cross-sectional analysis of 450 nephrology e-consults from one health system (2020–2023) in a setting where all specialty care requests are initiated via e-consult, aiming to characterize consultation patterns amid a stagnant nephrology workforce and rising chronic kidney disease prevalence in order to identify ways to better support referring clinicians. You can … Read more

Primary care clinician perspectives on automated nephrology e-consults for diabetic kidney disease: a pre-implementation qualitative study

This study by Chu et al. (BMC Primary Care, 2024) is a qualitative interview study with primary care providers across three health systems that explored barriers and facilitators to a proactive e-consult program designed to help nephrologists give timely, evidence-based guidance to primary care providers managing diabetic kidney disease. You can access the article here.

September 2020 E-Consult Workgroup Webinar

The September E-Consult Workgroup webinar featured Dr. Shalina Nair and Candy Magaña of the Ohio State University (OSU) Wexner Medical Center who discussed the OSU’s Clinical Transformation in Technology Framework to quickly expand telehealth in response to the COVID-10 pandemic. In addition, Dr. Alpesh Amin, Chair, Department of Medicine, UC Irvine School of Medicine presented on … Read more