Referral Templates and a Service Directory for Specialist Outpatient Clinics at Toowoomba Hospital are now available to download from the RHealth website for use by general practices in South West Queensland.

 

These items have been developed through the Improving Access Pathways to Specialist Outpatient Clinics Project implement by RHealth, in partnership with Queensland Health and GP Connections.

 

The Project began in 2008-09, and targeted 11 key Hospitals in Queensland, including Toowoomba, in an effort to provide GPs with accurate information on referral guidelines to Specialist Outpatient Clinics to improve patient access to these services.

 

Over half of all referrals to the Specialist Outpatient Clinics at Toowoomba Hospital are made by rural and remote GPs, especially from the regional centres of Dalby, Warwick and Kingaroy.

 

The Referral Templates and Service Directory provide GPs with an efficient way of making these referrals and make sure that they are aware of all required details and pre-tests so that their patients can be seen sooner.

 

All of the referrals reviewed under this Project were more than 2 years old. Queensland Health conducted an internal audit of data in each of the Specialist Outpatient Clinics to identify the correct number of aged referrals for action, which reduced the number of referrals for action by 92 percent instantly. Overall 759 referrals were audited, including administrative auditing and clinical auditing and 36 percent of these were removed through this process.

 

Dr Gillian McConnell and Dr Eddie Roos were GP Liaison Officers for this Project which was based on the model used by Townsville General Practice Network.

The Referral Templates and Service Directory are available for use with Medical Director and Best Practice and can be accessed here, or:

 

Directions for download are available on the website. Alternatively, the Referral Templates and Service Directory can be made available on USB or CD for your practice.