Design and development of a computer-based clinical referral system for use within a physician hospital organization

The process of creating a clinical referral for a patient and the transfer of information from the primary care physician to the specialist and back again is a key component in the struggle to deliver less costly and more effective clinical care. We have created a computer-based clinical referral application which facilitates 1) identifying an appropriate specialist; 2) collecting the clinical, demographic, and financial data required to generate a referral; and 3) transferring the information between the specialist and the primary care physician. Preliminary results indicate that the new computer-based process is faster.