Australia
New Zealand
The Parkville precinct hospitals (including the Royal Melbourne Hospital, The Royal Children’s Hospital, the Royal Women’s Hospital, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre) is taking a major leap forward in modernising referral management with the commencement of its eReferral implementation project with HealthLink. This marks the Hospital Group as the tenth Victorian hospital group to implement the solution. This move places the Parkville precinct alongside progressive health districts across Australia that are replacing legacy fax based workflows with fully digital, secure, and integrated referral pathways.
Building on the momentum seen in use of HealthLink’s eReferral technology across Victoria and other states, Parkville is adopting a solution proven to dramatically improve efficiency, visibility, and communication across the care continuum. HealthLink brings deep experience to this implementation, having already delivered multiple SmartForm eReferral systems across Victoria starting almost a decade ago in 2017, with Austin Health, Eastern Health, and others. Several of the Victorian services only accept HealthLink eReferrals into their specialist clinics, reflecting strong GP adoption, trust and scale of use in the solution.
In other recent implementations of HealthLink, clinicians have gained the ability to triage referrals from anywhere in the hospital, or even from home, supported by comprehensive metrics and dashboards that have improved service planning and workload management. These changes have provided such confidence in the digital process that many districts have made the decision to retire fax referrals entirely, making electronic referral the sole accepted method for external referrals
With a catchment of more than one million people, the rollout represents a major step in improving the consistency, security, and efficiency of referral pathways across the Parkville precinct hospitals. Referencing Victorian State-wide Referral Criteria, Specialty Criteria, and localised criteria, the initiative is backed by HealthLink’s extensive experience deploying eReferral solutions across Victoria.
For the Parkville precinct, the new platform will integrate directly with GPs’ practice management software, including demographic data, medical history, medications and alerts which are auto populated to streamline referral creation.
For GPs, this means:
- Seamless integration with Best Practice, Medical Director Clinical, Medical Director Helix, Genie, Medtech, Zedmed, Shexie, Communicare, MyHealthLink Portal and more software systems via HealthLink SmartForms;
- Secure electronic transmission directly into the Parkville precinct shared EMR;
- Reduction in lost referrals, delays and duplications; and
- Consistent statewide and national experience, with HealthLink SmartForms already used for Victorian Hospital and Community Health services, My Aged Care, Medicare Mental Health, Hearing Australia, Lifehouse Cancer Centre, Cervin S&R Private Specialist Referrals, and Transport for NSW Fitness to Drive assessments.
With HealthLink’s acquisition of long time messaging provider Argus, the organisation has also ensured continuity and support for referrers across the Parkville precinct who have all transitioned to receiving Hospital discharge summaries and other correspondence via HealthLink’s new digital platform.
“A lot of hard work, dedication and trust goes into supporting GPs with a comprehensive digital service. Our goal for Hospitals has always been to enable a consistent, auditable and easy to use eReferral exchange service from the safety of the GP electronic medical record system. It’s important we remain laser focused and build upon this step change in digital infrastructure and referral workflow across Parkville to deliver the best possible healthcare experience for patients and clinicians alike”, says Jean Christophe Meunier, National Manager, HealthLink
This project represents an exciting step forward for the Parkville precinct, streamlining the referral process for general practitioners and specialists who regularly connect with our hospitals. It provides a valuable opportunity to fully digitise referral workflows and enable direct submissions into our shared electronic medical record system. By receiving referrals in real time, we can reduce administrative burden and shorten the time it takes for patients to access care”, says Fiona McCormack, eReferral Project Manager, Parkville precinct
By implementing HealthLink eReferrals, the Parkville precinct will position itself at the forefront of digital healthcare delivery, improving patient experiences, strengthening communication between hospitals and primary care, and reducing the administrative burden for clinicians across Victoria.
