Continuum of Care - eReferrals
What is the project doing?
The eReferral solution will provide for the electronic creation, submission and processing of patient referrals from primary to secondary health care providers. This solution provides automatic acknowledgement of referral receipt and will lead to GPs being more confident about what is happening with their patient.
In Phase 2, the project will allow the triaging of referrals within the hospital setting on-line.
In Phase 3, the project will provide clinical decision support tools as part of the e-Referrals solution.
Why is it being done?
Effective treatment of a patient's illness involves a coordinated effort between clinical staff in the primary and secondary/tertiary healthcare sectors. Current manual and paper based referral processes are non-standardised and create confusion with high volumes of rework by both Primary and Secondary personnel. They have high administrative costs and reduce the ability to leverage the large investment in existing online clinical information resources. In the worst case scenarios, they can endanger the life of a patient.
Moving from a paper based referral system to one managed electronically, will enable better integrated care and improve patient flow throughout the region.
The key benefits of Phase 1 are:
- Instant acknowledgement to a GP that their patient's referral has been successfully received into the destination DHB referral office.
- Increased legibility, relevance and accuracy of referral information
- Reduced likelihood of lost or mixed up referrals
- Reduced administrative overhead due to less verification of information needed
- Reduced assessment time as agreed information and referral purpose will be clearly documented
- Better clinical decision making as a result of greater control over the range and quality of data on referral forms
- Clinicians across the DHB will have simultaneous online access to referral information within the context of the clinical workstation which will lead to better co-ordination of patient care
- Immediate feedback on the receipt of a referral will reduce clinical risks associated with the referral process
- Some staff can be redeployed from current paper based activities to productivity improvement tasks that support electronic referral processing
- GP referrals sent electronically will not be able to be mixed up and patient details will appear on every page of printed referrals.
What change will be noticed?
This project will improve the quality of care for patients by implementing a system for managing referrals electronically between the primary and secondary sectors. On completion of Phase 1, the project will have delivered the following capabilities:
- General Practitioners will be able to select from a centralised forms library and submit referral forms electronically to DHB central referral offices for a range of specialty services.
- General Practitioners will receive electronic acknowledgement from DHBs that the referral has been received.
- DHB central referral offices will be able to electronically forward a primary care referral to another DHB.
- Clinicians in hospitals will be able to review referrals online.
- Referrals will be stored in a single regional referrals repository.
Project Phase
Implementation
Project Milestone
Phase 1 Production Pilot: April/May 2011
Governance
Auckland Region DHB eReferrals Steering Committee
Who is involved
Sponsors:
Ngaire Buchanan, GM Operations, ADHB.
Gillian Cossey, GM Surgical & Ambulatory Care, CMDHB.
Andrew Potts, GM Surgical & Ambulatory Care, WDHB.
Steering Committee:
Sarah Thirlwall, IS Project Director, healthAlliance
Johan Vendrig, CIO, ADHB
Linda Fletcher, Health Information Manager, ADHB
Jim Kriechbaum, GP Liaison, ADHB
Kathie Smith, Facility Manager Inpatient & Outpatient Services Surgical Services, CMDHB
Jeffrey Garrett, Clinician, CMDHB
Kathie Perkins, Elective Services and Booking Manager, WDHB
Kim Bannister, GP Liaison, WDHB
Paul Roseman, Project Director, Healthcare Integration, ProCare Health Ltd
Wayne Oxenham, Country Manager NZ, Orion Health
Tom Bowden, Chief Executive, healthLink
Regional Project Manager: Grant Ramsay, healthAlliance
Contact Us:
If you have any feedback or questions please email the project team on enquiries@ithealthboard.health.nz with the name of the project and your comments. We will respond to you within 5 working days.
