Collaboration of occupational physicians with national health system and general practitioners in Italy

A good cooperation between occupational physicians and other healthcare professionals is essential in order to achieve an overall improvement of workers/patients' well-being. Unfortunately, collaboration between occupational physicians and other physicians is often lacking or very poor. In this context, using a self-administered questionnaire, we investigated the cooperation of Italian occupational physicians with the National Health System (NHS) facilities and with the general practitioners in order to identify any potential critical issues that may hinder an effective and collaborative relationships between these professionals. The survey was conducted from October 2013 to January 2014. Nearly all of the interviewed occupational physicians have had contacts with colleagues of the Departments for Prevention and Occupational Health and Safety of the NHS. Regarding the relationship between occupational physicians and general practitioners findings showed that their cooperation is quite difficult and it would not seem a two-way collaboration. Cooperation between occupational physicians and NHS would benefit from the development of communication strategies and tools enhancing the support and assistance functions of the NHS facilities. The elaboration and subsequent application of operational guidelines and standardized procedures of communication would also improve collaboration between occupational physicians and general practitioners that is currently considered rather insufficient and incomplete.