Cardiology electronic consultation (e-consult) use by primary care providers at VA medical centres in New England:

IntroductionE-consultations (e-consults) were implemented at VA medical centers to improve access to specialty care. Cardiology e-consults are among the most commonly requested, but little is known about how primary care providers (PCPs) use cardiology e-consults to access specialty care.MethodsThis is a retrospective analysis of 750 patients’ medical charts with cardiology e-consults requested by medical providers (October 2013–September 2015) in the VA New England Healthcare System. We described the patients and referring provider characteristics, and e-consult questions. We reviewed cardiologists’ responses and examined their recommendations.ResultsAmong the 424 e-consults requested from PCPs, 92.7% were used to request answers to clinical questions, while 7.3% were used for administrative purposes. Among the 393 e-consults with clinical questions, 60 e-consults were regarding preoperative management; these questions most commonly addressed general risk assessment (n = 44), anti-coagulation/anti-platel...