Improving collaboration between specialists and general practitioners in services for individuals with chronic spinal cord injury living in rural areas of Switzerland: Baseline results from the SCI-Co study.

Context/objective: Strategies to combine primary and specialized care are crucial to meet the needs of individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) located in rural areas. We explored the collaboration between general practitioners (GPs) and SCI specialists who will participate in an intervention study to improve their collaboration.
Design: A questionnaire survey from August to October 2020.
Setting: Primary Care, Specialized SCI care.
Participants: Eight GPs and 13 SCI specialists.
Interventions: Baseline results from the SCI-Co study.
Outcome Measures: N/A.
Results: Overall, satisfaction ratings for the collaboration between GPs and SCI specialists were high, and all physicians agreed that they work together well. Especially, SCI specialists were satisfied in collaborating with GPs. Despite Switzerland's fragmented primary and secondary care system, only a few physicians reported about issues with delays and waiting lists. While GPs wanted to improve the quality of their referral, most SCI specialists reported being content with it. GPs were also discontent about discharge organization by specialists.
Conclusion: Satisfaction with collaboration was high, both in GPs and specialists. Areas for improvement include discharge and referral processes.