Deputy Head of the Department of Pediatrics and Chair of the Division of General Pediatrics Dr. Richard van Wylick says he is looking forward to seeing more practitioners take advantage of the
eReferral services.
“Now that we have more than 10 months of experience with eReferral, we’re hoping more referring providers will use it, as we have already noticed the benefits of improving access through more complete referrals, and better tracking,” he says. “eReferral is available Department-wide now through a central intake process that makes it easy to refer a patient to Pediatrics and have us route the patient to the appropriate service.”
Dr. van Wylick says there are several benefits to using eReferrals. “The elimination of the need for faxing is there, and the opportunity for us to customize the information that helps us properly triage referrals in a way that we can make sure the right patients get in in the right time frame is there. There’s an opportunity to customize that information by building in prompts in the eReferral process and by family doctors referring providers to attach that information directly from their EMR at the time of referral rather than going back and forth, he says.” Dr. van Wylick adds that this keeps the process moving along and also allows the Department to more easily provide information that would help the patient during the triage of referrals so the physicians can communicate back to the referring doctor with a quick message related to the referral much more readily. “It also provides real-time updates to patients and the referring physicians on the status of the referral- when to book and with whom, and to provide customized instructions back to the referring doctor and the patient on what to expect from their appointment and what to bring,” he says. There is also a benefit of being able to easily redirect referrals to the most appropriate service within Pediatrics. “Within our own Department, we can redirect things electronically and seamlessly. There’s an advantage there to make sure people are seen by the right physician.”
Overall, Dr. van Wylick hopes to see more eReferrals come through the Pediatrics Department. “We have already noticed the tremendous advantages of efficiency and effectiveness.”