Cork, Kerry hospitals back GP electronic referral plan

All of the acute hospitals in Cork and Kerry have now introduced an electronic referral system for GPs referring patients for public outpatient hospital appointments as part of a HSE national pilot project.

The Mercy University Hospital in Cork was the first hospital to accept electronic referrals from GPs. Since then, the other acute hospitals in the region — Mallow General Hospital, Cork University Hospital, South Infirmary-Victoria University Hospital, Kerry General Hospital, and Bantry General Hospital — have made the electronic system available in their areas.

Tallaght Hospital, which was also part of this pilot project, is also accepting electronic referrals to its paediatric services.

To date, almost 7,000 electronic referrals have been received by the hospitals in Cork, Kerry, and Tallaght with almost 300 Cork- and Kerry-based GPs using the system. This represents 46% of all Cork- and Kerry-based GPs and 40 Dublin-based GPs.

Frank Hill, the GP representative on the project team charged with implementing the pilot project, said it has become his default option for all referrals to public outpatients.

“It takes me less than a minute to create and send most referrals so I usually do it while the patient is with me,” said Dr Hill. “I get an immediate acknowledgement from Healthlink, which allows me to tell the patient before they leave that the referral has been received already by the hospital. I get an electronic message confirming the appointment from the hospital, which saves automatically into the patient file.

“This saves hugely on telephone calls to the hospital to confirm receipt of referrals when patients phone back asking what is happening with their appointment.”

The purpose of the project was to develop an electronic referral pathway for public outpatient hospital appointments between GPs and the seven hospitals. Healthlink provides a web-based messaging service, which allows secure transmission from GP to the hospital.

Once the referral has been received by Healthlink, the GP receives an acknowledgement of receipt of the referral and an electronic response message detailing if the patient has been listed for an urgent or a routine appointment and the appointment date if available.

The system improves the patient experience by providing quicker access to outpatient appointments, reduced duplication and delays; faster and easier access to a consultant opinion.

The system is designed in a way that can be rolled out nationally to all GPs and acute hospitals and a number of other hospitals are interested in starting the process.

The introduction of electronic referrals for outpatient hospital appointments, which is based on Hiqa’s general referral form, has been informed by the National Cancer Control Programme, Healthlink, the National General Practice Information Technology Group, Irish College of General Practitioners, and the HSE’s ICT Department.