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MONTREAL – Primary care physicians are not confident when it comes to diagnosing and managing patients with bipolar depression, according to a cross-sectional survey of providers participating in a national electronic health record database.
Among 85 primary care providers in GE Healthcare's Medical Quality Improvement Consortium, self-rated confidence in managing bipolar disorder averaged 1.7 on a scale of 1–5, with 5 being “very confident,” said Dr. Dana King, who presented the findings as a poster at the annual meeting of the North American Primary Care Research Group.
“For other more common disorders such as reflux disease, heart disease, or diabetes, these physicians have more confidence in their ability to sort out complex problems and deal with them. But bipolar disorder is less common and people have less exposure to it during their training,” explained Dr. King, professor of family medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston.
Eighty-six percent of the respondents had been using electronic health records (EHRs) for 3 or more years, and 94% had access to the Internet from their clinical workstations.
Although 72% of the respondents said they screened depressed patients for bipolar disorder, only 38% reported frequently using a standard screening tool, the most common being the Mood Disorder Questionnaire.
Informal screening was more common than was the use of standardized tools and consisted of “a few questions about manic activity in patients with depression,” Dr. King said. Such information screening may involve questions such as “Do you go on spending sprees? Do you stay up all night? or Do you find yourself having ups and downs, including periods of high irritability, anger or stress?”
As the use of EHRs becomes more widespread, they may help prompt physicians to screen patients for bipolar disorder by offering pop-up information, he said. This represents an opportunity for quality improvement.
“Physicians seem to like the idea that we could offer them quick medical information via the [EHR] that will give them some quick answers,” he said.
“Many of them are willing to comanage the patient but they first want the diagnosis to be confirmed, typed according to bipolar I or II, with an identification of the phase and recommended medications. That was the preference of most of them,” he concluded.
The study was part of a quality improvement project funded by Delaware Valley Outcomes Research and GE Healthcare.
MONTREAL – Primary care physicians are not confident when it comes to diagnosing and managing patients with bipolar depression, according to a cross-sectional survey of providers participating in a national electronic health record database.
Among 85 primary care providers in GE Healthcare's Medical Quality Improvement Consortium, self-rated confidence in managing bipolar disorder averaged 1.7 on a scale of 1–5, with 5 being “very confident,” said Dr. Dana King, who presented the findings as a poster at the annual meeting of the North American Primary Care Research Group.
“For other more common disorders such as reflux disease, heart disease, or diabetes, these physicians have more confidence in their ability to sort out complex problems and deal with them. But bipolar disorder is less common and people have less exposure to it during their training,” explained Dr. King, professor of family medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston.
Eighty-six percent of the respondents had been using electronic health records (EHRs) for 3 or more years, and 94% had access to the Internet from their clinical workstations.
Although 72% of the respondents said they screened depressed patients for bipolar disorder, only 38% reported frequently using a standard screening tool, the most common being the Mood Disorder Questionnaire.
Informal screening was more common than was the use of standardized tools and consisted of “a few questions about manic activity in patients with depression,” Dr. King said. Such information screening may involve questions such as “Do you go on spending sprees? Do you stay up all night? or Do you find yourself having ups and downs, including periods of high irritability, anger or stress?”
As the use of EHRs becomes more widespread, they may help prompt physicians to screen patients for bipolar disorder by offering pop-up information, he said. This represents an opportunity for quality improvement.
“Physicians seem to like the idea that we could offer them quick medical information via the [EHR] that will give them some quick answers,” he said.
“Many of them are willing to comanage the patient but they first want the diagnosis to be confirmed, typed according to bipolar I or II, with an identification of the phase and recommended medications. That was the preference of most of them,” he concluded.
The study was part of a quality improvement project funded by Delaware Valley Outcomes Research and GE Healthcare.
MONTREAL – Primary care physicians are not confident when it comes to diagnosing and managing patients with bipolar depression, according to a cross-sectional survey of providers participating in a national electronic health record database.
Among 85 primary care providers in GE Healthcare's Medical Quality Improvement Consortium, self-rated confidence in managing bipolar disorder averaged 1.7 on a scale of 1–5, with 5 being “very confident,” said Dr. Dana King, who presented the findings as a poster at the annual meeting of the North American Primary Care Research Group.
“For other more common disorders such as reflux disease, heart disease, or diabetes, these physicians have more confidence in their ability to sort out complex problems and deal with them. But bipolar disorder is less common and people have less exposure to it during their training,” explained Dr. King, professor of family medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston.
Eighty-six percent of the respondents had been using electronic health records (EHRs) for 3 or more years, and 94% had access to the Internet from their clinical workstations.
Although 72% of the respondents said they screened depressed patients for bipolar disorder, only 38% reported frequently using a standard screening tool, the most common being the Mood Disorder Questionnaire.
Informal screening was more common than was the use of standardized tools and consisted of “a few questions about manic activity in patients with depression,” Dr. King said. Such information screening may involve questions such as “Do you go on spending sprees? Do you stay up all night? or Do you find yourself having ups and downs, including periods of high irritability, anger or stress?”
As the use of EHRs becomes more widespread, they may help prompt physicians to screen patients for bipolar disorder by offering pop-up information, he said. This represents an opportunity for quality improvement.
“Physicians seem to like the idea that we could offer them quick medical information via the [EHR] that will give them some quick answers,” he said.
“Many of them are willing to comanage the patient but they first want the diagnosis to be confirmed, typed according to bipolar I or II, with an identification of the phase and recommended medications. That was the preference of most of them,” he concluded.
The study was part of a quality improvement project funded by Delaware Valley Outcomes Research and GE Healthcare.