[The roles of primary and secondary health services in the production and utilization of clinical chemical blood analyses. A 5-year survey in the county of Frederiksborg].

The number of clinical chemical analyses performed on blood in the County of Frederiksborg in 1990 was 3.7 per inhabitant. The number of analyses requested increased by only 2.5% since 1986. Approximately 1/3 of the analyses were requested from primary care and about 1/5 of these analyses were performed in the doctors' offices. Approximately 100 different kinds of analyses were requested, but the 10 (20) most frequent analyses requested in 1990 account for 62 (80%) of the analyses requested from the hospitals and 73 (89%) of the analyses requested from primary care. Approximately 50% of the analyses requested for B-hemoglobin and B-sedimentation rate and about 70% of the analyses requested for B-glucose was performed in the doctors' office in 1990. Only the number of analyses requested for B-glucose has increased (50%) since 1986. The three analyses account for more than 90% of the clinical chemical analyses performed on blood in the doctors' offices. The pattern of analyses for the ten most frequent analyses requested from primary care differs from the pattern of analyses requested from the hospitals. As compared with the number of analyses requested for P-creatinine, the analyses P-aspartate aminotransferase, P-alkaline phosphatase, B-sedimentation rate and B-differential counts were requested more than twice as frequently from primary care as from the hospitals. The pattern of analyses requested for a number of the 20 most frequently requested analyses shows considerably variation from hospital to hospital. This is especially pronounced for B-sedimentation rate and B-leucocyte counts.