[The general practitioner faced with the choice of hospitalization: an analysis of the data from the Follow-Up System computerized network].
The Project "Informatization of the General Practitioner" aimed at networking the work stations of a randomized set of 150 general practitioners equipped with the "Follow-Up System" software, for the collection of information related to the activity carried out, to be electronically transferred to a central unit was developed in the frame of the finalized Project of the National Research Council: "Prevention and Control of the Disease Factors". During the project activity, a study on prescribed hospitalizations was carried out. The contents of items regarding hospitalization diagnosis show that diagnoses concerning diseases included in chapter ICD-9: "Symptoms, signs and morbid conditions not well defined" represent 30.3% of the total; most of these undefined syndromes can be identified under the item "abdominal pain" with 18.2% of cases. Obviously in the case of appendicitis (12.1% of hospitalizations) the hospitalization carried out by the physician resulted to be necessary, in the case of biliary lithiasis (8 cases, 7.4%), the physician could have treated the patient without hospitalization. The interest of such data is to induce a sort of provocation in order to observe, within 8% of hospitalizations following abdominal pain, what rate of hospitalization could be avoided, giving the adequate support to the general practitioner in order to decide the behaviour to have.
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Laboratorio di Epidemiologia, Cattedra di Igiene, Università Tor Vergata, Roma.
Buonomo
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Capozzi
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Fusiello
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Mariotti
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Noce
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D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003195:Computer Communication Networks / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003933:Diagnosis; D005194:Family Practice / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007558:Italy; D008875:Middle Aged; D012984:Software / Q000706:statistics & numerical data