Before you submit a referral

We support timely referrals for your patient by offering:

  • our HealthPathways portal, giving clear, local clinical guidance to support decision-making
  • a request for advice service, prompting a response within five working days
  • clinical prioritisation criteria, supporting the consistent, fair triage of patients. Adherence to the criteria is essential for timely referrals
  • the Smart Referrals platform, which is the easiest and most efficient way of referring patients to our services.

Read more about these components below to achieve the best possible health outcomes for your patient.

HealthPathways

HealthPathways is a web-based portal that supports doctors and other healthcare professionals to make consistent, evidence-based decisions about patient care.

It requires individual practitioners to register an account before logging in the first time.

HealthPathways provides:

  • key resources and contacts
  • localised clinical guidelines
  • care pathways and management guidelines for common health conditions
  • clinical prioritisation criteria
  • information on local public and private services and how to access them.

General practitioners should use HealthPathways at point of care. It is also a valuable resource for hospital specialists, nurses, allied health and other health professionals in the West Moreton region.

Read more about HealthPathways on the Queensland Health website.

Requests for advice

Using Smart Referrals, GPs can request specialist clinical advice and receive a response within 5 business days regarding new and existing patients.

The following specialities accept requests for advice (RFA):

  • cardiology
  • diabetes
  • endocrinology
  • general medicine
  • geriatrics
  • gynaecology
  • paediatrics
  • respiratory
  • renal
  • rheumatology
  • maxillofacial surgery
  • general surgery
  • infectious disease

West Moreton Health is working to expand the number of services that accept RFAs. While this work is underway, our non-RFA outpatient specialty teams can still review your referrals.

Clinical prioritisation criteria

Clinical prioritisation criteria (CPC) are clinical decision support tools for referrals to public specialist outpatient services.

The criteria ensure:

  • referrals contain all required information to enable accurate and timely triage
  • appointments are allocated based on clinical urgency
  • patients are prepared and ready for care at their first appointment
  • better communication between referrers and specialist outpatient services
  • equitable access to care across the state.

A referral may not be accepted if it doesn’t meet the criteria. Instead, the GP will receive guidance to support the management of their patient.

Read more about clinical prioritisation criteria on the Queensland Health website.

Smart Referrals

The Smart Referrals platform is the preferred option for fast, streamlined referral management for Queensland public hospitals.

GP Smart Referrals is the app that integrates with software used in general practice such as Best Practice and Medical Director.

The GP Smart Referrals app enables you to:

  • request specialist advice before submitting your referral
  • align your referral with clinical prioritisation criteria to ensure all essential information is included
  • integrate with practice software to automatically pull pathology results, investigations and other key clinical information directly into your referral
  • upload attachments such as PDFs, images and Microsoft Word documents (up to 25 MB).
  • track the progress of your referral, submit updates or withdraw a referral
  • receive status updates on your referral and outcomes for your patients
  • view outpatient wait times by category
  • access local clinical guidelines via its integration with HealthPathways
  • escalate your referral to category 1 (urgent).

How to register for GP Smart Referrals

To register your practice for GP Smart Referrals

Learn more and access additional Smart Referrals resources on the Queensland Health website.

Other referral methods

If you cannot access GP Smart Referrals, other referral methods are via:

  • secure web transfer:
    • medical objects: IQ43050005G
    • HealthLink EDI: qldipswc
  • fax:

In the absence of GP Smart Referrals, these templates can be used:

Although secure web transfer is preferable to fax, we acknowledge that private specialists, optometrists and other referrers may not have access.

Patient information

Health practitioners external to Queensland Health can securely access a wide range of patient hospital information by registering an account with the Health Provider Portal. Enquiries to connectingqld@health.qld.gov.au.

Patient information received in error

This process outlines the steps external clinicians should follow if they receive correspondence from West Moreton Health (WMH) regarding a patient who is not known to their service. This helps maintain the accuracy of patient records and protects patient privacy.

Recommended actions

Check the intended recipient
  1. Confirm whether the correspondence may be:
  2. A new referral intended for your service
  3. Addressed to another clinician within your practice
  4. Filed under a different patient name
  5. If it belongs to another clinician within your clinic, please reallocate it internally.

Do not file the correspondence if the patient is not known

If the patient is not known to your practice and no referral has been made, do not upload or store the correspondence in your clinical records.

Delete the correspondence after notifying us

Once we have been informed, please delete the correspondence from your system to maintain patient privacy.

Information to include in your notification

When contacting us, please provide:

  1. Your name and practice details
  2. The patient’s name and date of birth (as shown on the correspondence)
  3. Any reference numbers or identifiers included in the letter
  4. A brief statement confirming the patient is not known to your practice.
Contact information for incorrectly addressed correspondence

West Moreton Health privacy team
Phone: (07) 3447 3090
Email: WM-Privacy@health.qld.gov.au

Urgent patient safety concerns

West Moreton Health Patient Safety and Quality Unit
Phone: (07) 3447 2844
Email: WM-PatientSafety@health.qld.gov.au

Your cooperation supports us maintain high standards of patient care, data accuracy, and confidentiality.

Emergency department referrals

When referring patients for emergency care, make sure they take their referral letter with them to the emergency department (ED). You can fax more information to the ED if needed.

If your patient is arriving by ambulance, make sure they have their referral letter and any clinical handover documents with them.

For urgent but not life-threatening conditions, visit alternatives to emergency department referrals on HealthPathways.

Last updated:   July 2026

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