October 2010

Forms nearing completion.

The project team along with the eReferrals Clinical Panel and vendors Orion Health and healthLink have been finalising the design of the referral forms. One kcore (generic) form and 3 specialty forms have now been reviewed and signed off by the Clinical Panel. The specialty forms completed include Cardiology, Diabetes and Fertility with the remaining 19 expected to be finalised by early November.

Over 100 clinicians representing 28 services from across the Auckland region have contributed to the datasets used to create the forms to be launched in the first phase of the eReferrals implementation.

Some features of the new system.

The ARDHB eReferrals solution evolves from earlier referrals systems and will advance functionality and provide a number of additional features, including:

Inter DHB Referrals 
Primary care referrals can be electronically forwarded from one DHB Central Referral Office (CRO) to another DHB CRO.

Central Forms Library
New forms will be made available and changes to existing forms will be made within the central forms library and automatically distributed to GPs so that they will always be using the latest version of each form.

Status Messages
Automatic acknowledgement to the GP on receipt of the referral, registration of the referral by the CRO and when the referral has been forwarded to another DHB CRO.

Service Specific Forms
28 services are included in phase one with most having their own specific form capturing clinical information relevant to that service. This will help to reduce referral rejections and improve information quality for clinical triage.

Automatic Determination of DHB
The referral form will be sent to a DHB based on the physical address of the patient in the patient management system. If the referral is for a regional service the referral will override this automatic DHB determination and will send to the DHB hosting the regional service.

Reporting
Concerto will offer basic management reporting including on referral volumes by DHB, by referrer, by service, by status. In the future and with appropriate privacy safequards in place, reporting will be implemented to enable drilldown into the eReferrals repository storing all the referrals received into the 3 DHBs.

Auto-population of Patient Details
Where possible information is pre-populated into the fields in the eReferral form using information from the GPs patient management system. Up to 70% of the form will be pre-populated including demographic information as well as medical history saving considerable time in the referral process.

The form will highlight where information is missing from the PMS and once information has been added into the patient file, the GP can refresh the section which will then be updated with the information.

Attachments
GPs will be able to attach files to the referral form which may be required for triage including scanned files and image documents.

eReferrals out in the field.

The eReferrals team has been out and about this month visiting with PHO representatives to discuss how best to roll out training and information about eReferrals. The general message has been ‘when can we have it?’ An encouraging start! We will be working with PHOs to ensure that it is as easy as possible to incorporate the use of these eReferrals forms into the day to day activities of GPs and to save them as much time as possible.

The team will be presenting to GPs at various group meetings to provide an opportunity for those interested to view mock ups of the forms and to discuss the required fields with clinicians and GP liaisons from their DHB. Keep an eye and ear out for session dates for your PHO.

Timeline for rollout.

Some key milestones relating to the rollout include:

• Training commences (February 2011)
• Pilot Go Live (March 2011)
• Rollout commences (March 2011)
• Rollout completes (September 2011)

What do you want to know about eReferrals?

The project team have been meeting with PHO representatives and presenting the project to DHB clinical and IS groups.

If you have a meeting or forum that you would like the team to present to please email eReferrals@healthalliance.co.nz.

We are also updating our website with key milestones and other important information as it comes to hand. Refer to www.ereferrals.co.nz for the latest information. Let us know using the email address noted above if you have any questions about eReferrals which you would like answered and we will make sure they are included under FAQs on the website.