TY - JOUR T1 - An evaluation of 1 year of advice calls to a tropical and infectious disease referral Centre JF - Clinical Medicine JO - Clin Med SP - 424 LP - 429 DO - 10.7861/clinmed.2019-0201 VL - 20 IS - 4 AU - Tom Wingfield AU - Mike BJ Beadsworth AU - Nicholas J Beeching AU - Susan Gould AU - Luke Mair AU - Emmanuel Nsutebu Y1 - 2020/07/01 UR - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/20/4/424.abstract N2 - Objectives Many secondary care departments receive external advice calls. However, systematic advice-call documentation is uncommon and evidence on call nature and burden infrequent. The Liverpool tropical and infectious disease unit (TIDU) provides specialist advice locally, regionally and nationally. We created and evaluated a recording system to document advice calls received by TIDU.Methods An electronic advice-call recording system was created for TIDU specialist trainees to document complex, predominantly external calls. Fourteen months of advice calls were summarised, analysed and recommendations for other departments wishing to replicate this system made.Results Five-hundred and ninety calls regarding 362 patients were documented. Median patient age was 44 years (interquartile range 29–56 years) and 56% were male. Sixty-nine per cent of patients discussed were referred from secondary healthcare, half from emergency or acute medicine departments; 43% of patients were returning travellers; 59% of returning travellers had undifferentiated fever, one-third of whom returned from sub-Saharan Africa; 32% of patients discussed were further reviewed at TIDU. Interim 6-month review showed good user acceptability of the system.Conclusions Implementing an advice-call recording system was feasible within TIDU. Call and follow-up burden was high with advice regarding fever in returned travellers predominating. Similar systems could improve clinical governance, patient care and service delivery in other secondary care departments. ER -