Inward Referrals (Clinical Workflow) – Profile EMR User Help

Background
Overview of Inward Referral View Filters
View All Open Inward Referrals
Review Inward Referrals Requiring a Decision
Accept an Inward Referral
Decline an Inward Referral
Close an Inward Referral
View Closed Inward Referrals

Background

An Inward Referral is a referral received by your clinic from another service, such as an external provider or another VCH/PHC clinic by phone, fax, or within the EMR. Typically, admin staff start the process by creating the Inward Referral and then the intake clinician reviews the referral to make a decision to accept or decline the referral. After decision, the next steps are typically completed by admin staff again such as attempting contact to book the client's first visit or sending the declined letter to the referral source.

This help file covers the typical clinician workflow.

Overview of Inward Referral View Filters

There are three main ways to filter referrals: By Status, By Decision, and By Progress (and any combination of these).

Using the different Progress options allows your clinic to divide the different stages that referrals are in into smaller and more manageable lists (i.e., view only referrals currently in Attempting Contact). Your clinic may choose to use some or all of the Progress options depending on your workflows and referral volume.

Filter	Options	Definition
Status	Open	Default – There are still steps that need to be completed with the referral
Status	Closed	There are no more steps that need to be completed with the referral
Decision	Pending	Default – No decision has been made but ready for decision
	Accepted	Referral has been accepted
	Declined	Referral has been declined
	Null/Blank	Optional: May be used for referrals with missing requirements and not yet ready for Clinical Review
Progress	Null/Blank	Default – No progress defined
	Clinical Review	Referral is undergoing Clinical Review by the clinician; waiting for decision
	Attempting Contact	Appointment is being attempted to be booked
	Appointment Booked	Appointment has been booked
	Added to Wait List	Client has been added to Wait List
	Completed	Referral workflow is complete

View All Open Inward Referrals

Different roles will have a different list of referral view filters and different default view filters to support their workflow.

1. Navigate to Work Centre
2. Select Referrals
3. To view all Open Inward Referrals at your current logged on clinic, in the View dropdown, ensure that Inward Referrals – Open (Current POS) is selected
This displays all Open referrals that still require action - whether from the clinician or admin staff.
There are several other view filters available that would make the referral list more manageable for clinics with higher referral volume.

Tip! Click on the column header to sort, whether by Progress, Reason, Referral Received Date, Priority, Clinician, etc.

Any referral created for a client will also appear in the client's Medical Record's Referrals segment.

Tip! New inward referrals assigned to You at your current logged on POS in Open status, Pending decision, and empty Progress, will display in the floating work notifications (similar to pending tasks and unsigned transactions). Double-clicking Referrals within the floating work notifications window will bring you directly to Work Centre > Referrals. To acknowledge the new referral, set Progress to Clinical Review.

Review Inward Referrals Requiring a Decision

1. Navigate to Work Centre
2. Select Referrals segment
3. To view only Inward Referrals that require a decision, click on the View dropdown and select Inward Referrals – For All Clinicians – Open and Decision Pending (Current POS)
4. Double-click on a row to open the inward referral
5. Review the information presented such as Referral From, Referred Date, Diagnosis, Narrative, and Priority.
If your clinic's inward referrals are typically received via fax using a referral form, check the Attachments tab to find the filled out referral form.

Accept an Inward Referral

To accept an Inward Referral, change the Decision field from Pending to Accepted.

Note: If your clinic is required to capture different decision reasons, the Decision Reason dropdown have different options depending on Accepted or Declined decision. For example, the Accepted decision can also capture a reason of Accepted by Exception.

Decline an Inward Referral

To decline an Inward Referral, change the Decision field from Pending to Declined.

Note: If your clinic is required to capture different decision reasons, the Decision Reason dropdown have different options depending on Accepted or Declined decision. For example, the Declined decision can also capture a reason of Lost to contact or Client declined service.

Close an Inward Referral

If there is no further action required on the referral from any clinic staff (including admin staff), then the referral should be closed so that it falls off the Open Inward Referrals list.

To close an Inward Referral, click on the Close button and ensure to update the Decision and Reason as needed. This will change the Status from Open to Closed.

View Closed Inward Referrals

To view Closed Inward Referrals at your current logged on clinic, click on the View dropdown and select Inward Referrals – Closed (Received in the Last 1 Year to Current POS)
This displays Closed referrals that no longer require any action - whether from the clinician or admin staff. There is a date range of only those received in the last year to prevent performance issues in the system.