On August 27, 2018, the National Health Commission Office issued the "Notice on Issuing the Guiding Standards for the Establishment of General Practice Departments in Standardized Resident Training Bases (General Hospitals) (Trial) ", which stipulated that all general hospitals undertaking standardized resident training should independently establish a General Practice Department. Against this backdrop, the role and functional positioning of the General Practice Department become particularly important.

To explore the role and functional positioning of the General Practice Department in tertiary general hospitals by analyzing the disease characteristics of inpatients in the General Practice Department of a tertiary general hospital in Beijing.

Inpatients treated in the Department of General Practice, Fuxing Hospital of Capital Medical University, between 2021 and 2022 were selected as the study subjects. Basic patient demographics and clinical information were collected and retrospectively analysed, including gender, age, marital status, occupation, admission route, number of visits, admission diagnosis, discharge diagnosis, consultation details and clinical outcomes, and the prevalence of comorbidities was calculated.

A total of 1 441 patient visits were surveyed, comprising 702 male patients (48.70%) and 739 female patients (51.20%); ages ranged from 17 to 102 years, with a mean age of (79.5±13.6) years; 519 (36.01%) patient visits were for patients who had been hospitalised two or more times; 890 (61.76%) patient visits were for outpatients admitted to hospital, 489 (33.93%) were for emergency admissions, and 62 (4.30%) were referred from primary care facilities; 1 343 (93.20%) patients were discharged on medical advice. The top three admission diagnoses were pulmonary infection (197 cases, 13.67%), dizziness (167 cases, 11.59%) and cerebral infarction (150 cases, 10.41%); the top three primary diagnoses at discharge were pulmonary infection (343 cases, 23.80%), cerebral infarction (258 cases, 17.90%) and urinary tract infection (65 cases, 4.51%). The most common pattern of two chronic diseases was hypertension and hyperlipidaemia [806 cases (55.93%)], whilst the most common pattern of three chronic diseases was hyperlipidaemia, hypertension and cerebral infarction [584 cases (40.53%)]. Among the 1 441 patients, admission diagnoses covered 40 conditions within the general practice training curriculum, totalling 550 diagnoses; consultation diagnoses covered 63 conditions, totalling 1 137 diagnoses; and discharge diagnoses covered 83 conditions, totalling 12 328 diagnoses. Among admission diagnoses, conditions in internal medicine, surgery and rehabilitation medicine had a high coverage rate (>60%); among consultation diagnoses, conditions in surgery, infectious diseases, psychiatry and rehabilitation medicine achieved 100% coverage; and among discharge diagnoses, conditions in internal medicine, surgery, infectious diseases, psychiatry and rehabilitation medicine achieved 100% coverage.

In the daily clinical practice of general practice departments at tertiary general hospitals, chronic diseases, geriatric comorbidities and undiagnosed conditions predominate. These departments play a vital role in the comprehensive management of common diseases, provide an excellent teaching platform for the standardised training of general practitioners, establish a fast-track mechanism for collaboration between primary care and tertiary hospitals, and lay a solid foundation and provide safeguards for advancing clinical research in general practice.