Preparing for the Pathways Referral Tracker

What is it?

While Pathways has always been used as a tool to inform decisions about patient referrals, the addition of the Referral Tracker to Pathways will now allow physicians and their staff to send and track referrals as well, without the need of sending them by fax.

Features include:

• A collaborative dashboard (accessible through your existing Pathways account) where both Family Physicians (FP) and Specialists can track patient referral status (ie. sent, received, patient wait listed or booked).
• The ability to use your existing office workflow to send a referral letter and accompanying documentation to the specialist clinic.
• Secure messaging between FP and specialist offices through the dashboard.
• Automated electronic patient notifications sent by email or text, including patient instructions.

 

Benefits to Physicians

• FP offices know exactly when a specialist has accepted, waitlisted, or booked a patient.
• Electronic patient notifications significantly reduce MOA workload and improve communication with patients.
• Reduction in no-shows because appointment reminders are sent to patient 1 week and 48 hours before the appointment, plus FPs no longer feel pressured to make multiple referrals for a single patient.
• Each step of the referral is easily viewable in real time within the referral tracker dashboard and an audit trail is provided.
• Communications between FP and specialist offices are streamlined significantly, improving collegiality.

 

Benefits to Patients

• Patients actually know where they are in the referral process without needing to call the FP or specialist office to find out.
• Patients receive electronic notifications that contain a link to confirm the appointment and that contain pertinent instructions.
• Notifications are sent to patients upon being waitlisted and once their appointment is booked. Reminders of the appointment are sent 1 week and 48 hours before their appointment.

 

Implementation Timeline

Pathways has been working with the White Rock/South Surrey Division to pilot a prototype of the Referral Tracker. The pilot phase ended as of December 2018 and since October 2020, it’s being rolled out on the North Shore. The use of Referral Tracker on the North Shore went live on June 1^st 2021. All FPs are encouraged to continue to use it with all SPs enrolled.

The plans to continue expanding into additional Divisions may begin as early as this Fall 2021.

 

Enrollment is Open!

To all North Shore physicians, enrolment is now open. Please contact Marilu Encinas at mencinas@divisionsbc.ca to get your access today. It’s at no cost to you!