Health Care Innovation Awards Round Two: Association of American Medical Colleges Project Profile

Project Title: "eConsults/eReferrals: Controlling Costs and Improving Quality at the Interface of Primary Care and Specialty Care"
Geographic Reach: California, Iowa, New Hampshire, Virginia, Wisconsin
Estimated Funding Amount: $7,125,770

Summary:

The Association of American Medical Colleges project will test the scalability of an eConsult/eReferral model for implementation in five partner academic medical centers.  The eConsults model, developed by the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), is an electronic consultation and referral (eCR) platform for access to specialty input to address several well-documented gaps in primary care-specialty care communication and coordination and provide a foundation for non-face-to-face, asynchronous electronic consultation.  The proposed model has two components, both fully integrated into the Epic electronic health record.  The first being implementation of a standardized set of condition-specific referral templates across 12 medical specialties, with additional surgical specialties nearing completion. These templates, developed at UCSF and refined at each academic medical center by a consensus of primary care/specialist clinicians, provide immediate decision support to the primary care provider (appropriateness of referral, recommended pre-referral tests, etc.) and ensure that all necessary information is provided to the appropriate specialist. The second component of the model is the eConsult, an asynchronous exchange initiated by the primary care provider to seek guidance from the specialist, who is expected to respond in less than 72 hours. eConsults are completed in lieu of an in-person specialist visit, though the specialist can convert an eConsult to a referral if the situation warrants and the patients will still have the option to seek care with that specialist, if desired. The eConsult system integrates into current care-delivery practices and supports the work of both the primary care provider and the specialist involved in an eConsult exchange.

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