WA public outpatient referral requirements

Referring practitioners must include minimum demographic data and clinical information when submitting referrals to WA public outpatient services.

Demographic data required to register a patient

To register a patient on the WA Health patient administration system you must provide the patient's:

• full name and maiden name (if applicable)
• contact address and telephone numbers (mobile preferred as this allows the CRS or hospital site to send SMS alerts to the patient)
• date of birth and country of birth (if known)
• title (Miss, Mr, Mrs, Dr)
• interpreter required/language spoken
• name of GP and practice name and location
• next of kin and relationship to patient

To register a paediatric patient, you will need to also provide:

• the mother’s surname at time of birth
• which hospital the patient was born at.

Additional demographic data for new patients

To register a new patient on the Central Patient Index (CPI) and Patient Master Index (PMI) you will need to provide the patient's:

• gender
• marital status
• Indigenous status
• Australian residency status
• Medicare number, sequence number and expiry date
• religion.

Clinical information required in referrals

Limited clinical information makes it difficult to ascertain the clinical acuity and priority of the referral. If there is insufficient information provided to make an allocation decision, or for the hospital to triage the referral, your referral may not be accepted by the site and you may need to submit a new referral with additional information.

You must provide the patient's:

• past medical history including:
• details of previous treatment
• investigations (for example radiology or pathology) and procedures
• any other relevant results
• presenting symptoms, their duration and details of any associated medical conditions which may affect the presenting condition or its treatment (for example, diabetes)
• physical findings (for example, haematoma on right lower leg)
• height and weight or BMI (or percentile if referring infant/child with weight gain/loss issues)
• details of current medications and any known allergies.

Some outpatient specialties have mandatory Referral Access Criteria (RAC) in place:

• Referrals must contain information specified in the relevant RAC.

Additional information required in referrals:

• Date of referral
• Details of referring practitioner and provider number
• Contact details of referring practitioner, including fax number.

Where available, best practice referrals should also include:

• The name of specialty required
• GP/practitioner diagnosis and urgency
• The patient's Unique Medical Record Number (UMRN)