Development of OARS, an improved patient referral process

This article discusses the development of a portal to improve the process and communication around referrals into specialist healthcare centres.

Known as OARS, the Oxford Acute Referral System addressed the challenges of a paper based process to manage patient referrals to specialists, sometimes in a site many miles away. We looked at what the existing referral process was, what the needs of the different stakeholders were, and built a technology to provide a solution. We used many human factors based tools and techniques in the design and testing processes, which enabled us to get a product we are really proud of.