Antecedentes: Las referencias permiten derivar usuarios y elementos diagnósticos de un establecimiento de salud (EESS) de menor a otro de mayor capacidad resolutiva. La Dirección de Redes Integradas de Salud (DIRIS) Lima Norte realizó un listado de diagnósticos no pertinentes de ser referidos a hospitales, permitiendo considerar “referencias injustificadas”, a todas aquellas con alguno de esos diagnósticos. Objetivo: Determinar la frecuencia de referencias injustificadas enviadas al servicio de consulta externa adultos del Hospital Cayetano Heredia (HCH) durante el periodo abril a diciembre del 2019 y describir sus características. Materiales y métodos: Estudio transversal, observacional y descriptivo. Se utilizaron datos del aplicativo “REFCON” con una población de 99 891 referencias. Las variables fueron “justificación de la referencia”, edad, sexo, grupo etario, e...

Objective:To determine the frequency and to describe the characteristics of unjustified ambulatory referrals based on no pertinent diagnosis done at an adult outpatient clinic of a third level Peruvian hospital. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried-out from April to December 2019 at Hospital Cayetano Heredia. Data were extracted from REFCON with a population of 99 891 referrals. To justify the reference, a list of diagnosis that does not require referral was used. In addition, variables such as age, sex, specialty of destination, category of the health center of origin, district of origin and diagnosis of the unjustified referral. Descriptive statistics was used. Results: the frequency of unjustified referrals was 8.4%; 34.2% comprised the adult population; 65.8% were elder and 67% were female. Specialties with more unjustified referrals were cardiology, geriatrics, internal...