AGA and ACP launch toolkit to improve communication between primary care doctors, GIs

The American College of Physicians (ACP) today unveiled a High Value Care Coordination Toolkit designed to enable more effective and patient-centered communication between primary care and subspecialist doctors. The American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) coordinated with ACP to identify pertinent data sets for several conditions for which primary care physicians typically refer patients to gastroenterologists and hepatologists.

"The American Gastroenterological Association is participating in this program with ACP to provide guidance to primary carephysicians about the type of preparation needed to enable a more effective referral," said Joel V. Brill, MD, AGAF, the AGA representative to the High Value Care Coordination Workgroup. "The data that accompanies patients for referrals can expedite the process and reduce inappropriate referrals, duplicative testing or delays in care, which will improve patient care."

The conditions chosen by the AGA and ACP to include as part of the High Value Care Coordination Toolkit are gastroesophageal reflux disease, chronic diarrhea, rectal bleeding, abdominal pain, hepatitis C and abnormal liver function tests; the latter two were developed in cooperation with the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. AGA's data sets for these conditions can be found online.