Asking a well-focused clinician question can be challenging but focusing your question will help you get the information that you want.This is probably not surprising to you. Physicians have long been taught that to make the best use of formal consultations they need to clearly specify what question they want answered by having their patient seen by a consultant.The same seems to be the case of curbside consults! We've reviewed three years of e-mail consults and found a strong link between how well a question was focused and whether it went unanswered and whether the consultant requested a formal consultation.
When physicians clearly identified an intervention and outcome in their questions only 1 in 10 questions went unanswered or answered with the recommendation for a formal consult. However, when physicians asked poorly focused questions, such as "I have a patient with congestive heart failure, what should I do?", fully 1 out of every 2 questions went unanswered or a formal consult was suggested. You can see the big difference in outcome that arises from the care you use constructing your question. Basically, if you overlook giving the consultant a well focused question, you might not get the help that you need!