The Provincial Digital Referrals & Orders (DRO) Program, powered by Ocean will enable care teams to electronically exchange, track, and manage referrals, medical order requisitions and advice requests in a safe, efficient, and effective way.
The goal of the DRO Program is to deliver the solution across the province quickly to provide value and replace fax-based communication between health care providers.
This program will establish an integrated provincial solution to streamline the coordination of referrals, consults and diagnostic services, improve communication between providers and patients, and reduce administrative burden. Over time, three services will be offered by the DRO Program:
- eReferrals: Enables digital referrals between primary care providers and specialized health service providers to improve care coordination.
- eConsults: Enables digital requests for clinical advice between providers and specialists without the need for a patient visit, speeding up care delivery.
- eOrders: Enables digital orders for health services (lab orders, medical imaging) to inform decision-making and care delivery.
Implementation is currently focusing on eReferrals, with work beginning on eConsults and eOrders in 2024.
Provincial Digital Referrals and Orders enables digital referrals for providers at no cost to support community and ambulatory care providers with information exchange, improve patient care and safety, enhance patient communications, and reduce wait times.
DRO will gradually introduce Ocean across the province over the next few years.
Current product offerings include the Ocean Healthmap, digital referrals, and patient engagement tools for receiving clinics.
