Table 1.
Characteristics of patients and consultations selected for the study.
| Patient characteristics | |
| Age, years – median (IQR) | 64 (54-72) |
| Sex – N (%) | |
| Male | 328 (56) |
| Female | 261 (44) |
| Severity of patients' illnesses: CCI – median (IQR) | 3 (2-4) |
| Patients in the ICU – N (%) | 56 (10) |
| Length of hospital stay, days – median (IQR) | 21 (12-34) |
| Referring service – N (%) | |
| Surgical | 420 (71) |
| Non-surgical | 169 (29) |
| Consultation characteristics | |
| Number of recommendations per consultation – median (IQR) | 2 (1-4) |
| Timing of response, hours – median (IQR) | 24 (10-24) |
| Consultations with follow-up visits – N (%) | 255 (43) |
| Consultations with a new cardiovascular diagnosis – N (%) | 194 (33) |
| Consultations with personal communication – N (%) | 295 (50) |
| Type of consultation – N (%) | |
| Preoperative | 318 (54) |
| Non-preoperative | 271 (46) |
| Type of recommendation – N (%) | |
| Medication | 1256 (66) |
| Noninvasive exams/monitoring | 546 (28) |
| Invasive procedures/interventions | 118 (6) |
| Complexity of recommendations – N (%) | |
| Low | 1592 (83) |
| Intermediate | 211 (11) |
| High | 116 (6) |
IQR: interquartile range; CCI: Charlson comorbidity index; ICU: intensive care unit.