Improving collaboration between specialists and general practitioners in services for individuals with chronic spinal cord injury living in rural areas of Switzerland: Baseline results from the SCI-Co study

Abstract

Context/Objective

Strategies to combine primary and specialized care are crucial to meet the needs of individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) located in rural areas. We explored the collaboration between general practitioners (GPs) and SCI specialists who will participate in an intervention study to improve their collaboration.

Design

A questionnaire survey from August to October 2020.

Setting

Primary Care, Specialized SCI care.

Participants

Eight GPs and 13 SCI specialists.

Interventions

Baseline results from the SCI-Co study.

Outcome Measures

N/A.

Results

Overall, satisfaction ratings for the collaboration between GPs and SCI specialists were high, and all physicians agreed that they work together well. Especially, SCI specialists were satisfied in collaborating with GPs. Despite Switzerland’s fragmented primary and secondary care system, only a few physicians reported about issues with delays and waiting lists. While GPs wanted to improve the quality of their referral, most SCI specialists reported being content with it. GPs were also discontent about discharge organization by specialists.

Conclusion

Satisfaction with collaboration was high, both in GPs and specialists. Areas for improvement include discharge and referral processes.

Keywords:

• General practitioners
• Specialists
• Collaboration
• Switzerland
• Spinal cord injury

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all physicians who participated in this study.

Disclaimer statements

Declaration of interests None.

Conflicts of interest Authors have no conflict of interests to declare.

Supplementary information

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website. https://doi.org/10.1080/03772063.2022.2098190.