E-referrals: Speeding up the system

Electronic-referrals (e-referrals) are being gradually introduced to the health sector, providing an improved means of sending secure patient information from one organisation to another.

Dr Dianne Davis, General Practitioner and GP Liaison Officer at Northland District Health Board says that in a recent pilot study with GPs, electronic generation and transmission of patient referrals lead to more rapid access to specialist triage and subsequent care options. It also resulted in a decrease in the work load for GPs.

"In the study almost 90 percent of GPs found e-referrals faster to complete than conventional paper based referrals.  This gives us confidence that these referrals enable faster access for patients to appropriate care pathways."

Paper based referrals can be lost, be illegible or have incomplete information. E-referral addresses these problems and when accurately completed can help with improved access to services and faster diagnosis.

For District Health Boards (DHBs) and health providers, e-referrals also provide greater security including elimination of un-secured faxed referrals. With standardisation patients gain the benefit from consistent, accessible referral information.

"Developing the capability between health organisations to send and receive e-referrals is an important area of development for delivering faster, consistent, high quality patient care," says Dr Davis.

E-referrals are one part of the electronic medical record.  E-discharges form the second significant component under development.  Both of these are part of the National Health IT Plan and together these electronic exchanges support the effective development of improved clinical pathways. 

Dr Davis has been a General Practitioner for 16 years.  Her professional area of interest is in designing patient flows that allow for the efficient use of limited resources, and eliminating sources of waste, both financial and people's time. She is a regular speaker at health ICT events on the topic of e-referrals.

She can be reached at dianne.davis@northlanddhb.org.nz for more information on experiences with e-referrals for any DHB considering implementing them.