What is the best way to gather clinical questions from physicians?

Abstract

Increasing attention is being paid to the clinical questions of physicians and other health care providers. Asking and answering questions is important to continuing education, the development of information sources, and the delivery of quality patient care [1–3]. Attempts are underway to systematically identify and answer the questions of clinicians with the best available evidence [4]. The number of questions per patient seen varies considerably depending on how the questions are collected. Studies using direct observation or exit interviews after each patient encounter have generally identified more questions per patient than studies using physician self-report [5–7]. On the other hand, direct observation and exit interviews are almost certainly more expensive and time consuming than self-report, because they require a full-time observer with each physician for the study period. They therefore may not be practical for ongoing surveillance of physician questions. This kind of ongoing surveillance is important because questions change as new tests and treatments are developed. This study is the first to directly compare the content of clinical questions gathered by exit interview after each patient encounter and by physician self-report.