The scoring included 5 categories: 1) adequacy and clarity of description of patients' disease/state, 2) knowledge, 3) adequacy of recommendations, 4) courtesy and respect and 5) language and style.
Although their scores differed for all scoring categories (one expert scored consistently lower than the other two; Table 1), the experts were concordant in 3 out of 5 scoring categories: "Knowledge", "Adequacy of recommendations" and "Courtesy and respect", as well as their overall evaluation.
The letters were audited by patients and 3 family medicine experts who used a grading instrument (scale 0 – poor, 1 – medium, 2 – good) for 1) adequacy and clarity of description of patients' disease/state, 2) knowledge, 3) adequacy of recommendations, 4) courtesy and respect and 5) language and style.
The patients, regardless of their age, gender, education level or place of living, gave higher scores than family medicine experts for all criteria – description of disease, recommendation and courtesy, most probably because that they valued the novel way of learning about their disease and recommendations for therapy and lifestyle change.
The recommendation comes courtesy of SecretCellars.com, an Internet retailer of specialty wines that plans to help an unlucky casualty of a dot-com drown his or her sorrows in style.
Politics and Prose became a cornerstone of the community, a humming salon for the wonky and the literary alike and a neighborhood institution for those looking for a cup of coffee, a comfortable chair or just a good book recommendation — often courtesy of Mrs. Cohen herself.
Three categories from the same instrument were used for patients' grading of the letters: 1) adequacy and clarity of description of their disease/state, 2) adequacy of recommendations, and 3) courtesy and respect (scale range 0 2, possible score range 0 6).
Both the patients and the experts gave high scores for the value and quality of the letters in terms of the description of the problem, adequacy of recommendations given, and courtesy and respect (mean (±standard deviation) 5.65 ± 0.79 for patients vs. 4.87 ± 0.79 for experts out of maximum score of 6).
Remember, faculty members write letters of recommendation as a courtesy.
1.15pm GMT Summary Here is a summary of the key recommendations of the Francis report, courtesy of my colleague Randeep Ramesh.
