Introduction

The pan-Canadian eReferral / eConsult (CA:eReC) Interoperability Specification is an implementable and testable specification. It defines building blocks to create electronic referrals and electronic consults that will support communication between healthcare practitioners and service providers performing electronic patient referrals and / or electronic consultations. CA:eReC building blocks are configurable to address necessary Canadian jurisdictional variances.

An eReferral is an electronic request for a patient to receive care from a specialist or other services (e.g., home or community care, diagnostic exam). Patient referrals are created, submitted, tracked and managed electronically. It aims to streamline and improve the referral process compared to traditional paper-based methods.

An eConsult is an electronic request from a physician to receive advice from a specialist (i.e., provider-to-provider consultation), enabling asynchronous communication between the requesting physician and specialist. It aims to provide timelier access to specialist advice than waiting for a specialist appointment for non-urgent cases.

Overall, eReferrals and eConsults aim to enhance the quality of patient care, reduce delays in treatment, and improve the overall efficiency of the healthcare system. The CA:eReC specifications, written in line with international best practices, contains the information necessary for an implementer to read and develop the components necessary for creating, submitting and receiving an electronic referral or consult.

Content and Organization

The implementation guide is organized into the following sections:

Business Context includes pages that provide an overview of the Use Cases and Business Rules that this implementation guide supports.

Technical Specifications includes pages with Technical Background information including related specifications that developers should read and understand and formal specifications for CA:eReC Messaging with detailed description of implementation requirements and conformance expectations.

Terminology provides a full list of Terminology used in this IG with a revision history.

FHIR Artifacts provides context for and links to FHIR Artifacts that provide explicit, computable definitions of the required capabilities of different systems including message definitions, profiles, and extensions.