title: An analysis of clinical consultation activities in clinical pathology: who requests help and why.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To examine the distribution of callers who made consultation requests and to identify associations between caller categories and consultation topics.
  
  
  METHODS
  Review of prospectively collected database of consultations.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Direct care personnel made more consultation requests than non-direct care personnel. Consultation topics varied by caller type. Direct care personnel requested more consultations on test interpretation and few consultations on test selection than laboratory personnel. Differences in consultation requests by primary care physicians and specialists were significant.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  At our laboratory, consultation requests primarily originate from primary care physicians. Consultation requests vary by caller type.
authors.affiliation: From the Department of Pathology, University of Utah School of Medicine and ARUP Laboratories, Salt Lake City, UT. robert.schmidt@hsc.utah.edu.
authors.forename: Robert L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.affiliation: From the Department of Pathology, University of Utah School of Medicine and ARUP Laboratories, Salt Lake City, UT.
authors.forename: Jeanne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Panlener
authors.affiliation: From the Department of Pathology, University of Utah School of Medicine and ARUP Laboratories, Salt Lake City, UT.
authors.forename: Jerry W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Hussong
mesh_terms: D016208:Databases, Factual; D006282:Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D010338:Pathology, Clinical; D012017:Referral and Consultation
keywords: Clinical pathology; Consultation; Service design