Capital Health Network

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For Health Professionals Digital Health Pathology E-Requesting

Pathology Electronic Requesting (eRequesting) is a fast and easy process of requesting pathology tests. Using a conformant medical software, health care providers can send the request electronically to the lab and a paper request is also printed so that patients can have the liberty to choose a pathology provider. Information is sent directly to the lab and if the appointment is via Telehealth patients can receive a copy via SMS following a telehealth appointment. 

Benefits of eRequesting: 

1. Reducing ordering and processing time and increased data accuracy:

  • Test order list is specific to each provider & recommended tests available for medical conditions.  
  • Live tracking of requested and pending orders, set favourites, predictive search, view patient history.   
  • No manual transcription of orders by the lab.  
  • Naming of results returned precisely match the requests ordered by the GP. 

2. No change to the existing Pathology requesting workflow for health care providers.

3. Other GPs, hospitals, specialists, and other health care practitioners being able to view pathology results via My Health Record.

4. Consumers no longer having to phone pathology labs and providers requesting copies of pathology reports.

5. A potentially faster collection experience for the consumer.

How does eRequesting work?  

More and more pathology providers are embracing electronic ordering or what is also known as Pathology eRequesting to streamline the processing of pathology test requests and results. Results can also be uploaded to a patient’s My Health Record. You can view the list of ACT providers that share results to My Health Record here.    

Once eRequesting is set up for your practice, there isn’t anything significantly different for GPs in terms of how you order pathology as most of it happens in the background.   

Laverty Pathology has this function automatically enabled in all practice management systems and automatically uploads results to My Health Record (unless the patient has opted out).  For those practices who are using Capital Pathology as their provider, this is how it works:  

  • The GP generates a pathology request for a patient on the Capital Pathology eRequesting page in their practice management system.   

Graphical user interface, application Description automatically generated

  • When the request form is printed, an electronic file containing the same information on the form is sent to the lab. This file includes:  

        – Patient demographics  

        – Clinical Notes  

         – Tests requested   

         – Doctor details  

  •  The request form prints with a barcode which is scanned when the patient presents to one of Capital Pathology’s collection rooms, and the information automatically populates into their system.  

Graphical user interface, text, application Description automatically generated

  •  Because there is now a link between the information in your practice’s software and the information in the lab’s system, the results will always go to the correct patient file without the need for manual allocation.  
  •  It also reduces the chance of any tests being missed because of a transcription error.  
  •  Once the electronic referral from the GP is sent to Capital Pathology, an SMS message is sent to the patient containing the referral and the barcode, similar to the Electronic Prescription.  The patient can present this to the lab to activate the pathology request.  

At this stage only Best Practice and Medical Director have the eRequesting capabilities for Capital Pathology. If you are using either of these systems and would like assistance setting up eRequesting in your practice, please contact Capital Pathology on (02) 6285 9805 or client_services@capitalpath.com.au.  

In the ACT, ACT Pathology results are automatically uploaded to MyDHR. Most results can be viewed in MyDHR as soon as they are available, so patients may see results before their clinician has had a chance to review them.  

If you need assistance or if you have any questions regarding eRequesting or other digital health services, please feel free to contact CHN’s Quality Improvement Team via email: primarycare@chnact.org.au.

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