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Mandatory reporting by physicians of patients potentially unfit to drive

BACKGROUND: One strategy for the prevention of motor vehicle crashes is physician reporting of medically unfit drivers to vehicle licensing authorities, as mandated by law in Ontario, Canada. We studied drivers involved in life-threatening crashes who required hospital admission to determine how man...

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Autores principales: Redelmeier, Donald A, Vinkatesh, Vikram, Stanbrook, Matthew B
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Open Medicine Publications, Inc. 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3091591/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21602950
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author Redelmeier, Donald A
Vinkatesh, Vikram
Stanbrook, Matthew B
author_facet Redelmeier, Donald A
Vinkatesh, Vikram
Stanbrook, Matthew B
author_sort Redelmeier, Donald A
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: One strategy for the prevention of motor vehicle crashes is physician reporting of medically unfit drivers to vehicle licensing authorities, as mandated by law in Ontario, Canada. We studied drivers involved in life-threatening crashes who required hospital admission to determine how many had previously been seen and reported by a physician in the community. METHODS: We identified consecutive drivers involved in a crash who were admitted to Canada’s largest trauma centre between 30 June 1996 and 30 June 2001 to assess the prevalence of 3 chronic medical conditions reportable to vehicle licensing authorities (alcohol abuse, cardiac disease, and neurological disorders). We then conducted a case series analysis of linked health and transportation databases to determine how many drivers had previously been seen and reported by a physician in the community. RESULTS: A total of 1,605 injured drivers were identified, of whom 37% had a reportable condition (95% confidence interval [CI] 35–39). Those with a reportable condition had made a total of 20,505 previous visits to 2,332 physicians during the five years before the crash. The majority of patients with a reportable condition (85%, 95% CI 82–88) had seen a physician in the year before the crash but few (3%, 95% CI 2–4) had been reported to licensing authorities. Alcohol abuse was the most common underlying reportable condition (prevalent in 72% of trauma patients with a reportable condition) and the least common reason for a previous report (reported in 2% of those with a reportable condition). INTERPRETATION: Unsafe drivers often visit physicians and yet are rarely reported to licensing authorities even under mandatory reporting laws for preventive medical reporting.
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spelling pubmed-30915912011-05-20 Mandatory reporting by physicians of patients potentially unfit to drive Redelmeier, Donald A Vinkatesh, Vikram Stanbrook, Matthew B Open Med Research BACKGROUND: One strategy for the prevention of motor vehicle crashes is physician reporting of medically unfit drivers to vehicle licensing authorities, as mandated by law in Ontario, Canada. We studied drivers involved in life-threatening crashes who required hospital admission to determine how many had previously been seen and reported by a physician in the community. METHODS: We identified consecutive drivers involved in a crash who were admitted to Canada’s largest trauma centre between 30 June 1996 and 30 June 2001 to assess the prevalence of 3 chronic medical conditions reportable to vehicle licensing authorities (alcohol abuse, cardiac disease, and neurological disorders). We then conducted a case series analysis of linked health and transportation databases to determine how many drivers had previously been seen and reported by a physician in the community. RESULTS: A total of 1,605 injured drivers were identified, of whom 37% had a reportable condition (95% confidence interval [CI] 35–39). Those with a reportable condition had made a total of 20,505 previous visits to 2,332 physicians during the five years before the crash. The majority of patients with a reportable condition (85%, 95% CI 82–88) had seen a physician in the year before the crash but few (3%, 95% CI 2–4) had been reported to licensing authorities. Alcohol abuse was the most common underlying reportable condition (prevalent in 72% of trauma patients with a reportable condition) and the least common reason for a previous report (reported in 2% of those with a reportable condition). INTERPRETATION: Unsafe drivers often visit physicians and yet are rarely reported to licensing authorities even under mandatory reporting laws for preventive medical reporting. Open Medicine Publications, Inc. 2008-02-11 /pmc/articles/PMC3091591/ /pubmed/21602950 Text en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ca/ Open Medicine applies the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License, which means that anyone is able to freely copy, download, reprint, reuse, distribute, display or perform this work and that authors retain copyright of their work. Any derivative use of this work must be distributed only under a license identical to this one and must be attributed to the authors. Any of these conditions can be waived with permission from the copyright holder. These conditions do not negate or supersede Fair Use laws in any country.
spellingShingle Research
Redelmeier, Donald A
Vinkatesh, Vikram
Stanbrook, Matthew B
Mandatory reporting by physicians of patients potentially unfit to drive
title Mandatory reporting by physicians of patients potentially unfit to drive
title_full Mandatory reporting by physicians of patients potentially unfit to drive
title_fullStr Mandatory reporting by physicians of patients potentially unfit to drive
title_full_unstemmed Mandatory reporting by physicians of patients potentially unfit to drive
title_short Mandatory reporting by physicians of patients potentially unfit to drive
title_sort mandatory reporting by physicians of patients potentially unfit to drive
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3091591/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21602950
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