The purpose of this Question Verification Form is to enable Priority Setting Partnerships (PSPs) to describe clearly how they checked that their questions were unanswered, before starting the interim prioritisation stage of the process.
The JLA requires PSPs to be transparent and accountable in defining their own scope and evidence checking process. This will enable researchers and other stakeholders to understand how individual PSPs decided that their questions were unanswered, and any limitations of their evidence checking.
Name of the PSP
Outpatient Service Delivery
Please describe the scope of the PSP
To find the top 10 questions on how best to deliver care through outpatient services.
Outpatient services refer to healthcare services where you can receive any procedure or treatment without an overnight stay at the hospital. Some examples of outpatient care include imaging procedures, diagnostic tests, GP and hospital appointments, annual check-ups, routine follow-ups, and coming to the hospital to see your health professional.
Please provide a brief overview of your approach to checking whether the questions were unanswered
From the summary questions, we identify the key terms. For each key term, we identify synonyms and alternative words, separated by Boolean operators such as AND, OR, NOT. Truncations were used (* ; $). These modified/adapted searched terms were then put in the databases after which restrictions were put (time limit, non-UK, non-English, non-human).
Please list the type(s) of evidence you used to verify your questions as unanswered
Systematic reviews
Please list the sources that you searched in order to identify that evidence
Different databases:
- Prospero
- Ovid: Medline, Embase, Global Health, APA PsycInfo
- Cochrane Library
- CINAHL Plus/CINAHL (EBSCO) (Nursing and Allied Health) (CINAHL Plus AMED - The Allied and Complementary Medicine Database, MEDLINE)
- Citation Indexes & Conference Proceedings (Web of Science)
- GreyNet Results
What search terms did you use?
Depends on each summary question what key terms were identified. For example:
Outpatient: (GP* OR general practitioner* OR outpatient OR primary care) NOT (hospital* or health* facility* or health* cent*)
Appointment: consultation* OR appointment* OR follow$up* OR check$up* OR visit*
Health condition: disease* OR disorder* OR sickness* OR ill* OR health condition* OR comorbidit* OR audio* OR cardi* OR infecti*disease* or gastro* or colorectal OR diabet* OR endocrin* OR dermatolog* OR endoscop* OR general medicine OR thrombosis OR ear nose throat OR otorhinolaryng* OR maxillofacial OR head neck surgery OR oral surgery OR epilep* OR general surgery OR breast surgery OR bariatric surgery OR upper gastro* OR genetic* OR geriatric* OR gyn$eco* OR h$emato* OR anticoagula* OR h$emoglobinopath* OR h$mophili* OR sickle cell OR myeloma OR hepat* OR pulmo* OR respi* OR pleural OR neuro* OR dementia OR movement disorder* OR onco* OR orthop$edic* OR trauma OR fracture* OR obstetric* OR p$ediatric* OR pain clinic OR physio* or plastic* OR radio* or renal OR nephro* OR rheumato* OR thoracic OR uro* OR vascular OR covid OR coronavirus
Outpatient letter: info* or letter* or communicat* or mail*
Please describe the parameters of the search (eg time limits, excluded sources, country/language) and the rationale for any limitations
Limited to 3 years and 10 years back. Excluded non-English papers, papers outside the UK, and non-human studies.
Names of individuals who undertook the evidence checking
Marie-Claire Rebeiz
Diego Abelleyra Lastoria
On what date was the question verification process completed?
October 2023
Any other relevant information
None
Date 19-12-2023