Dr Donal Buckley, Dr John Cox,
Mr Paul Gaffney, Dr Frank Hill,
Dr Anne Lynott, Dr John MacCarthy,
Dr Fergus Mckeagney, Dr Brian Meade,
Dr Kieran Murphy, Dr Johnny Sweeney,
Dr Martin White;
GPIT Facilitators and Advisors Group Last week, the ICGP and GPIT group launched their national referral template.
The document aims to streamline the referral process, improve communication between primary and secondary care and lay down the foundations for the development of electronic patient referrals.
In addition, it will act as a barrier against more paper forms being imposed on GPs by secondary care services without any regard for the fact that most GPs now store their patient information on computer and without any consultation with GPs.
The referral template has been integrated into four of the GPIT certified software packages and can therefore largely be completed by the software, using information already contained in the electronic patient record. It can also be downloaded from the ICGP website for those without such systems.
The referral template has been endorsed by the ICGP, GPIT, HSE and HIQA.
In fact the development of such a referral template was one of the key recommendations of the HIQA report arising from the breakdown in the referral process that occurred in Tallaght Hospital in 2010.
Use of the template will take some getting used to, but it does ensure a high quality referral letter which is easier for our consultant colleagues to process.
Ultimately it is a stepping stone towards electronic patient referrals which have been shown internationally to be cost effective for both GPs and hospitals and safer for patients.
