Country SA PHN Newsletter March 2025
Clinical Prioritisation Criteria (CPC) are standardised statewide referral criteria designed to provide referring clinicians with a concise referral guideline for common conditions seen in specialist outpatient clinics within SA Health. CPC are published on the SA Health Internet CPC website.
CPC assist the public and health professionals in:
- ensuring referred patients are accepted and categorised based on standardised statewide clinical referral criteria.
- accessing consistent and accurate information for referral criteria and clinical urgency categories for each specialty.
- providing diagnostics to be performed prior to referral.
- supporting safe and equitable access to public hospital outpatient clinics within SA Health.
Each CPC has been developed by Local Health Network (LHN) clinicians, General Practitioners (GPs) from the Metropolitan Adelaide Primary Health Network (PHN) and GP Integration Officers from metro LHNs. We are excited to announce that in 2025 GPs from Country SA PHN will be participating in the CPC project.
The CPC website was developed by LHN clinicians and GP colleagues, with support from the Outpatient Redesign team in the Department for Health & Wellbeing (DHW) and was launched in June 2023. The website now includes 29 specialties, covering over 400 adult and paediatric conditions, including:
- Allergy and Immunology (adult)
- Burns (adult and paediatric)
- Cancer Genetics (adult and paediatric)
- Cardiology (adult)
- Colorectal Surgery (adult)
- Dermatology (adult and paediatric)
- Ear, Nose and Throat (adult and paediatric)
- Endocrinology (adult and paediatric)
- Gastroenterology (adult)
- General Medicine (adult)
- General Surgery (adult)
- Genetics (adult and paediatric)
- Geriatric Medicine (adult)
- Gynaecology (adult and paediatric)
- Haematology (adult)
- Haematology/Oncology (paediatric)
- Hepatology (adult and paediatric)
- Neurology (adult)
- Neurosurgery (adult and paediatric)
- Ophthalmology (adult and paediatric)
- Orthopaedics (adult)
- Paediatric Medicine (paediatric)
- Paediatric Surgery
- Pain Management (adult and paediatric)
- Palliative Care (adult and paediatric)
- Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (adult and paediatric)
- Renal (adult and paediatric)
- Respiratory and Sleep Medicine (adult and paediatric)
- Rheumatology (adult and paediatric)
- Urology (adult and paediatric)
- Upper GI and Hepatobiliary Surgery (adult)
- Vascular (adult)
Additional specialties will be added as they are completed and endorsed. The next round of specialties for CPC development will commence early in 2025.
CPCs will be incorporated into the state-wide electronic referral (eReferral) management system being led by Digital Health SA, enabling GPs to digitally send referrals to outpatient clinics. Six adult specialties, covering 62 conditions, have been embedded into the eReferral platform, with further specialties to be added as the system matures.
For further information regarding the CPC Project, please contact DHW Clinical Prioritisation Criteria Team at [email protected].
Published on: March 17, 2025
