Referral Management | Medplum
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Planning this workflow?
The Referrals Decision Guide walks through requirements questions and FHIR modeling decisions for referrals — use it alongside these docs.
Building out a referral management experience requires composing multiple FHIR resources into a workflow that meets the requirements of both referring and receiving providers. There are three primary interactions that developers should consider when building out a custom referral management solution:
- Capturing referral requests from the referring provider
- Transmitting referrals to receiving providers
- Tracking referral status throughout the workflow
Referral Overview [](/content/docs/careplans/referrals#referral-overview "Direct link to Referral Overview"/index.html)
Here is a sample of what a referral management experience might look like - to be clear, referral interfaces can look however you want them to. A sample referral application could be built using Medplum React components.
When capturing referral information, gathering the essential details using a Questionnaire is a good first step. This can be used to create a ServiceRequest which serves as the core referral resource. You can query all resources related to a given referral from the ServiceRequest endpoint.
Depending on your use case, you might need to include different supporting information such as Conditions, Observations, or DocumentReferences. Search is useful to construct the specific queries that will give the context needed for a complete referral.
React components are available to aid in building a quick referral experience. QuestionnaireForm, ResourceTable, Search control, ResourceAvatar, and Timeline are potential components that can speed development of the referral management interface.
subject
requester
performer
reasonReference
supportingInfo
focus
about
| ServiceRequest |
|---|
| Cardiology Referral |
| Patient |
|---|
| Homer Simpson |
| Practitioner |
|---|
| Dr. Julius Hibbert |
| Practitioner |
|---|
| Dr. Nick Riviera |
| Condition |
|---|
| Chest Pain |
| Observation |
|---|
| ECG: Abnormal |
| Task |
|---|
| Referral Tracking |
| Communication |
|---|
| Referral Document |
Key Resources [](/content/docs/careplans/referrals#key-resources "Direct link to Key Resources"/index.html)
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
ServiceRequest |
The primary resource for representing a referral. Contains details about the requested service, priority, and supporting information. |
Task |
Used to track the status of the referral through its lifecycle (requested, accepted, rejected, in-progress, completed). |
Questionnaire |
Defines structured forms for capturing referral information consistently. |
QuestionnaireResponse |
Contains the completed referral form data that can be processed to create a ServiceRequest. |
Communication |
Represents the transmission of referral information between providers, including attachments and delivery status. |
DocumentReference |
Used to attach clinical documents, images, or other files to the referral. |
Condition |
Represents diagnoses that justify the reason for the referral. |
Observation |
Contains clinical measurements or findings that support the referral. |
Key Code Systems [](/content/docs/careplans/referrals#key-code-systems "Direct link to Key Code Systems"/index.html)
| Code System | Description |
|---|---|
| SNOMED CT | Used in ServiceRequest resources to specify referral types and specialties. |
| ICD-10 | Used in Condition resources to specify diagnoses that justify the referral. |
| LOINC | Used in Observation resources to specify clinical measurements included in the referral. |