Case Study · Healthcare 10 weeks Perth, WA

Referral Workflow Automation for a Specialist Clinic

Automated GP-to-specialist referral routing with priority triage, status tracking and real-time notifications. Eliminated paper-based referral management.

Custom Software DevelopmentProcess Automation
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Client Context

Multi-specialist medical clinic: cardiology, orthopaedics and gastroenterology

A specialist clinic receiving 200+ GP referrals per week across three specialties. Referrals arrived by fax, email, phone and occasionally hand-delivered letters. No two GPs submitted referrals in quite the same way.

The admin team manually triaged every referral, reading through documents, determining urgency, matching to the right specialist, booking appointments, and updating the referring GP. Some referrals waited days before being processed.

The Challenge

What needed to change

Referrals arrived through 4 different channels with no consistency. Some were detailed letters, others were brief handwritten fax notes. The admin team had to decipher, triage and route each one manually.

No visibility for GPs or patients. Once a referral was sent, the GP had no idea if it had been received, triaged or actioned. Patients called the clinic asking if their referral had arrived. GPs called chasing appointments.

Priority cases got delayed. Urgent referrals were mixed in with routine ones. A critical cardiac referral sat in the same pile as a routine follow-up. The triage process was first-in-first-served rather than clinically prioritised.

The Solution

What we built

A referral management system with digital intake, automated triage, specialist routing and real-time status visibility for GPs and patients.

Digital Referral Intake

Unified intake portal for GP referrals. GPs submit referrals through a structured online form. System also ingests fax and email referrals via automated scanning and data extraction.

Automated Priority Triage

Rules-based triage assigns priority levels based on referral content: clinical indicators, urgency flags and specialist availability. High-priority referrals surface immediately.

Specialist Routing

Referrals route to the correct specialist based on condition type, availability and patient preference. Load-balanced across practitioners.

Status Tracking

GPs and patients see referral status in real time: received, triaged, appointment booked. Automated notifications at each stage reduce follow-up calls.

Built with:
ReactTypeScriptNode.jsPostgreSQLAWS SESTwilioOAuth 2.0
In Practice

How it works

1

GP submits referral

Through the online portal or by sending via fax/email. Structured form captures clinical details, urgency indicators and patient information.

2

System triages automatically

Priority level assigned based on rules. Urgent referrals flagged for same-day review by the relevant specialist.

3

Specialist receives and reviews

The referral appears in the specialist's queue, pre-sorted by priority. Specialist accepts, requests more information, or redirects.

4

Appointment booked

Admin books the appointment from within the system. Patient and GP receive automated notifications with appointment details.

5

Status visible throughout

GP can check the referral portal to see current status. Patient receives SMS updates. No more phone calls to check progress.

Results

Measurable outcomes

75% Faster referral processing (3 days → same day)
0 Lost or misplaced referrals
50% Reduction in admin processing time
60% Fewer phone enquiries from GPs
200+ Referrals processed per week
100% Urgent referrals triaged within 2 hours

We used to lose referrals. Literally lose them, in email, in fax piles, between desks. Now everything is tracked from the moment it arrives. The GPs love it because they can see what is happening without calling us.

Clinic Manager Specialist Medical Clinic
Delivery

How we delivered it

1

Process Mapping

2 weeks

Spent a week embedded in the clinic observing the referral workflow end-to-end. Documented every channel, every handoff, and every point where referrals stalled or got lost.

2

System Build

5 weeks

Built the intake portal, triage rules engine, specialist routing and status tracking system. Integrated with the clinic's Practice Management System for appointment booking.

3

Testing & Pilot

3 weeks

Piloted with one specialty for 3 weeks. Refined triage rules based on real referral patterns and specialist feedback. Validated GP portal experience with 10 referring practices.

Meet the person

The person behind the work

Your project, handled by the founder from start to end.

HELLO PEOPLE designs, builds and looks after AI, software, app and data solutions for Australian businesses, with senior expertise on every project and a scope agreed before work starts. For automation, that means building around the steps your team actually repeats, not the ones that look good in a demo.

Since 2007, HELLO PEOPLE has delivered more than 100 projects from Perth for small and medium businesses across Australia: custom software and apps, system integrations, data migrations, reporting and dashboards, and AI that works inside the systems a business already runs.

I lead every engagement myself. I trained in accounting before moving into IT, hold accounting and IT professional qualifications and an MBA, and bring more than 20 years of experience across sales, service delivery, inventory and compliance. I am also a PhD candidate in AI at Curtin University, researching retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), so the technology is always judged by what it does for the business.

  • An old-fashioned service

    Small and boutique. The person who scopes your automation is the person who builds it, and the same person watches its first real runs.

  • Quick responses

    No ticket queue and no account manager in between. You hear back within one business day, usually sooner.

  • A long-term partner

    The automation is the start, not the end. When you need the next system, integration or report, you call the same person, who already knows your business.

Similar Project?

Want something similar for your business?

Tell us about your industry, your workflows, and what you want to achieve. We will scope it, quote it fixed-price, and build it.

Tell us what you want to fix

What industry are you in? What systems do you use? What is the biggest operational problem you want solved? We will come back with a plan and fixed-price quote.

Prefer a quick chat? Call 0425 531 127. We answer the phone in Perth.