Central Referral Service referral requirements

Minimum demographic data required to register patient

To register a patient on the WA Health patient administration systems you will need to provide the following patient information:

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

To register a paediatric referral, you will need to provide the following additional information:

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

Additional demographic data

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

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

Minimum clinical information

The below details will help the CRS to determine the appropriate hospital site to allocate the referral and assist the hospital to triage the referral appropriately.

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, you may be contacted by the CRS to discuss further.

Please provide the following patient information:

• 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.

Additional information

• Date of referral – Some referrals are only valid for a period of time, for example specialist referrals are 3 months, GP/NP 12 months, and CRS processes referrals according to date received.
• Details of referring practitioner and provider number – This is required to ensure validity of referral and to register practitioner as a referrer on the WA Health patient administration systems.
• Contact details of referring practitioner including fax number – This information enables CRS/hospital to contact practitioner if required.
• The name of speciality required – This information is required so the referral can be allocated to appropriate speciality.
• GP/practitioner diagnosis and urgency – This information is required to ensure the diagnosis and speciality correlate, assists CRS and hospital to ensure patient is being allocated to appropriate speciality.
  Urgent referrals require urgent outpatient review and are processed by the CRS within one business day, non-urgent referrals are processed by the CRS within three business days and the patient is appropriately triaged at the site.
• Hospital Unit Medical Record Number (UMRN) – This information may assist hospitals to locate patient records.

More information

Central Referral Service
Healthlink Secure Messaging: crefserv
Phone: 1300 551 142
Fax: 1300 365 056
Email the CRS
Postal address: GPO Box 2566, St Georges Terrace, WA 6831