Chest pain symptom scoring can improve the quality of referrals to Rapid Access Chest Pain Clinic.

ABSTRACT: Typical stable angina is a clinical diagnosis based on history. The challenge for GPs in primary care is to identify those patients who are presenting with either possible or typical angina symptoms and refer onwards for specialist assessment in the local Rapid Access Chest Pain Clinic (RACPC). Our initial information gathering study suggested that referring GPs may be cautiously overdiagnosing angina in primary care, potentially resulting in avoidable or unnecessary referrals to RACPC. We sought a practical and cost effective solution to reducing avoidable referrals by assisting GPs with chest pain discrimination. We tested a change of referral form incorporating chest pain symptom scoring to see whether GP referral quality could be improved and then assessed its impact post implementatio

SUBMITTER: Rathod KS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4645932 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature