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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Mar 9.
Published in final edited form as: J Am Geriatr Soc. 2014 May 6;62(6):1122–1126. doi: 10.1111/jgs.12828

Table 1.

Characteristics of Interactionsa Providing Care for Patients Outside of Home Visits (N=1151)

Variable Frequency (%)
Whom/what the interaction was with, n (%)
 Patient 97 (8.4)
 Patient’s family 218 (18.9)
 Visiting nurse 285 (24.8)
 Home aide 38 (3.3)
 Other physician 49 (4.3)
 Pharmacy 56 (4.9)
 Visiting Doctors office staff 53 (4.6)
 No one (eg Review EMR only) 271 (23.5)
 Physical Therapist/Occupational Therapist /Speech therapy 20 (1.7)
 Durable Medical Equipment (DME) vendor 8 (0.7)
 Outside social work 13 (1.1)
 Agency 20 (1.7)
 Other 10 (0.9)
Mode of interaction/event, n (%)
 Telephone 704 (61.2)
 Email 29 (2.5)
 EMR 311 (27.0)
 Fax 11 (1.0)
 Written (eg letter) 41 (3.6)
 Face-to-face 31 (2.7)
 Other 0 (0.0)
Nature of interaction/event, n (%)
 Electronic prescription refill 108 (9.4)
 Printed prescription refill 33 (2.9)
 Prescription preapproval 5 (0.4)
 DME Rx 46 (4.1)
 Review labs/imaging/chart 128 (11.1)
 Left message 71 (6.2)
 Coordination of care and status update/change 562 (48.8)
 Caregiver stress 29 (2.5)
 Family meeting 1 (0.1)
 Health form completion 48 (4.2)
 Noted work by office staff 66 (5.7)
 Other 5 (0.4)
Outcome, n (%)
 Medication use/change 129 (11.2)
 Medication refill 139 (12.1)
 Referral 91 (7.9)
 Order labs 46 (4.0)
 Order imaging 14 (1.2)
 Discharge planning 47 (4.1)
 Urgent visit 33 (2.9)
 Emergency Room visit 23 (2.0)
 Reassurance/Counseling 126 (11.0)
 Change in management of care 75 (6.5)
 No change in care 479 (41.6)
 Other 352 (30.6)
Prior visit, n (%)b 141 (26.4)
 Urgent visit 21 (14.8)
Post visit, n (%)b 104 (19.5)
 Urgent visit 29 (27.4)

Abbreviations: EMR=Electronic medical records; PT=Physical therapy; OT=Occupational therapy; SW=Social work; DME=Durable medical equipment

a

Total number of interactions in 3 weeks: 1151; Total duration in 3 weeks: 5515 minutes (92 hours)

b

N= 537 unique patients; Prior visit in the seven days before the interaction or post visit in the seven days after the interaction