The Referral Process

Abstract

Referrals to other physicians or locations of care are an everyday and necessary occurrence in an active research practice. Some reasons necessitating these referrals are listed in Table 27 and, therefore, need to be discussed no further with the exception of the final item. Patients, regardless of the reason for referral, fall into five different groups. Each category listed in Table 28 is different in terms of the duration of the relationship with the research team, the patient’s level of expectation, and the investigator’s level of responsibility to the patient and the protocol. Regardless of which group the patient falls in, he needs to be aware of the differences between the private medical care and clinical research care relationships. The latter is highly structured by the protocol, is very selective, is limited in the scope of care provided, requires more documentation, and is finite. An adequate referral process takes these differences into account. The success of this process can be measured in terms of patient satisfaction, a good image projected in the medical and lay communities, increases in the number of word-of-mouth referrals from both rejected and completed study candidates, as well as good staff morale and self-esteem.