La clinical governance in medicina generale: Conoscenze, ambiti applicativi e bisogni formativi di un gruppo di medici di medicina generale

Introduction. Cost containment appears, today, to be of the foremost importance for coping with a growing demand for health-care services. To respond to the present challenges, a system of clinical governance should be adopted by the organisations of the national healthcare system to ensure continuous improvement of their services' quality and to safeguard a high standard of clinical care. ? Objective. To evaluate the level of knowledge of a group of general practitioners about the methods and tools of clinical governance and about the areas, in clinical practice, in which they can be applied. Particular attention was paid to their need for education and training. ? Methods. We submitted a questionnaire to a group of general practitioners who work in Padova, Italy, for the National Health Service. Data were collected between July and September 2014. ? Results and conclusion. The results found that there is an average level of knowledge about clinical governance-related issues. Some stronger, educational, needs arose concerning, for instance, the approach to the patient, which still tends to be strictly scientific rather than holistic because it is based on the conception that the physician-patient relationship should be mainly disease-focused. At the same time, a strong willingness to be up to date and involved in the process of rating and improving one's clinical activities was found, as well as the feeling, expressed by the majority of the general practitioners, of being left out.