Hospitals

The electronic referrals project is aligned with major regional and national strategies. eReferrals are one of the Ministry of Health’s 12 Action Zones for improvement in Health Information Management.

They are a key facilitator of the District Annual Plan and have been identified as an area of priority in the Regional Information Systems Strategic Plan.

eReferrals is also in alignment with recommendations of the National Health IT Board to provide better integrated healthcare through enabling a core set of patient data to be stored and accessed electronically.

Phase 1 GP Forms: Completed

Phase 2.1 - 2.2 Referral Workflow: Complete

Phase 2.3 - 3.4 DHB Elective eReferrals

18 April 2018: DHB Elective eReferrals technology ( DEeR) went live at the 3 Auckland Metro DHBs in March 2018.  Each DHB is taking a different staged implementation approach.  The technology means that internal referrals can now be made electronically and referrals to other DHBs in the region.

Phase 1 - Completed

eReferrals sent to the central referral offices for the 29 elective services are stored in a Central Referrals Repository. These referrals are then be retrieved through a Concerto search.

Once the referral is registered at the Central Referrals Office, they are visible through the Concerto Clinical Document View to authorised clinicians across the region.

Phase 2 - Completed

The second phase of the eReferrals project will support online triage and prioritisation of referrals. Hospital teams will have electronic access to patient referrals from any hospital site in the region and will have visibility of a patient referral right through its life cycle. They will also be able to forward these referrals to any hospital service in the region.

In this phase clinicians will be able to view a patients referral history at a glance, limiting the risk of duplicate referrals.

Phase 3 - Technology completed, business implementation is partial

Each DHB is taking a different staged approach to utilising  DeER (DHB Elective eReferrals) to enable the sending of internal and intra-DHB referrals electronically (via Concerto), instead of by fax/phone or paper

Phase 1 - Completed

Not much has changed for hospital clinicians.

One new facility of the system enables you as a clinician to view referrals within patient context through the Concerto Clinical Document Viewer.

The Central Referrals Offices still prints referrals and manages them largely in the same way as they do currently.

Phase 2

Phase 2 will bring greater change at the hospital end with clinicians being able to triage referrals electronically. GPs will also be able to track the referral through the process.

Phase 3 - Technology completed, business implementation is partial

Each DHB is taking a different staged approach to utilising  DeER (DHB Elective eReferrals) to enable the sending of internal and intra-DHB referrals electronically (via Concerto) instead of by fax/phone or paper

Phase 1 - Completed

The process that is followed at the hospital end of the referral process hasgenerally remained the same in the first phase. Staff in the Central Referral Offices print the referral forms and manage them in the same way.

Referrals currently not handled by the Central Referral Offices also remained the same. There are plans to introduce primary referrals that are outside of the CRO in the first release of Phase Two. These will include Mental Health, Sexual Health, Allied Health, Adult Rehabilitation & Health of Older People services, Child and Youth and others.

Phase 2 - Completed

Phase 2 will bring greater change at the hospital end with clinicians being able to triage referrals electronically. GPs will also be able to track the referral through the process.

Phase 3 - Technology completed, business implementation is partial

Each DHB is taking a different staged approach to utilising  DeER (DHB Elective eReferrals) to enable the sending of internal and intra-DHB referrals electronically (via Concerto) instead of by fax/phone or paper

Paper referrals have been superceded.

Some of the most common problems with paper based referrals occur as a result of incomplete or inconsistent information, lost or illegible referrals or referrals sent to the wrong place. When this happens patients can fall through the gaps and wait longer than they should for the treatment they need.

Incomplete referrals also waste the time of DHB staff as they have to follow up to obtain the information required by the service.