Answer:
Answer is given in the Explanation.
Explanation:
General practitioners play a key role in identifying and treating infections in the elderly. During work hours, general practitioners are responsible for evaluating patients with acute problems in the area of influence of their practice. Outside of this period, patients can also access general practitioners after hours (OOH). However, they work in an emergency department and do not necessarily know the patient or have access to his medical records.
After diagnosing an infection in the elderly, general practitioners also face the problem of determining severity and predicting prognosis. Assessment systems such as the Pneumonia Severity Index (PSI) and CRB65 score (both to assess the severity of community-acquired pneumonia based on simple clinical observation) have been recommended to support prognostic decisions regarding primary care. However, these scores were developed to predict mortality during a hospital evaluation. Limits apply when using these scores for elderly patients in the community, as they have not been developed or validated for this population and are not clinical comorbidities or social factors.