The HSE clinical programmes are to develop information data sets for the national GP referral form to secondary care services.
Following the launch of the general GP referral form, additional information for various specialties is now being sought to make the form more comprehensive.
Dr Brian Meade, GPIT national coordinator, explained that when each of the clinical programmes submits details of the information sought from GPs, the technical adjustment to the referral form can then be made.
“One of the drawbacks of the form is that you can’t necessarily use the same form for every single service because a dermatologist might want specific pieces of information or similarly, a psychiatrist might need specific data, so ultimately there will be adaptations made to the electronic form, which will allow different data sets of information for a cardiologist, and other specialties, to be put into the form,” Dr Meade told IMN.
“So if you bring up a rheumatology form on your desktop it will look different from a psychiatry form; that’s not difficult to do from a technological point of view, the difficulty is for the specialists to get together and decide what are the critical, extra pieces on information that they each need over and above what’s there already.
“When all the specialists have decided what they need from GPs that extra bit of information can be inserted into the form’s programme.”
Dr Meade said that work has already commenced and that each of the programmes had been asked to submit data sets for their specialty.
“Once they’re agreed, the work involved in putting the data sets into the form should happen relatively quickly.” The ICGP recently produced a guidance document for GPs on the national referral form, which offers advice to GPs on how to successfully complete the form.
