In
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
, referral is the transfer of care for a patient from one
clinician
A clinician is a health care professional typically employed at a skilled nursing facility or clinic. Clinicians work directly with patients rather than in a laboratory or as a researcher. A clinician may diagnose, treat, and otherwise care for pa ...
or clinic to another by request.
Tertiary care
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profess ...
is usually done by referral from
primary or
secondary medical care personnel.
In the field of
sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the older term venereal diseases, are infections that are spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, and oral ...
s (STDs), referral also means the informing of a partner of a patient diagnosed STD of the potential exposure. ''Patient referral'' is where patients directly inform their partners of their exposure to infection. An alternative is ''provider referral'', where trained health department personnel locate partners on the basis of
the names, descriptions, and addresses provided by the patient to inform the partner.
Sexually Transmitted Diseases Treatment Guidelines, 2006
CDC. August 4, 2006 / 55(RR11);1-94
See also
*Classification of Pharmaco-Therapeutic Referrals
The ''Classification of Pharmaco-Therapeutic Referrals'' (''CPR'') is a taxonomy focused on defining and grouping together situations requiring a referral from pharmacists to physicians (and vice versa) regarding the pharmacotherapy used by the ...
CPR
* Family medicine
*Family practice
Family medicine is a medical specialty within primary care that provides continuing and comprehensive health care for the individual and family across all ages, genders, diseases, and parts of the body. The specialist, who is usually a primar ...
*General practice
General practice is the name given in various nations, such as the United Kingdom, India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa to the services provided by general practitioners. In some nations, such as the US, similar services may be describe ...
*ICPC-2 PLUS ICPC-2 PLUS is an extended terminology classified to ICPC-2 International Classification of Primary Care, which aids data entry, retrieval and analysis. ICPC-2 PLUS takes into account the frequency distribution of problems seen in primary health car ...
*International Classification of Primary Care
The International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC) is a classification method for primary care encounters. It allows for the classification of the patient’s reason for encounter (RFE), the problems/diagnosis managed, primary or general hea ...
ICPC-2
*Primary care
Primary care is the day-to-day healthcare given by a health care provider. Typically this provider acts as the first contact and principal point of continuing care for patients within a healthcare system, and coordinates other specialist care t ...
*Walk-in clinic
A walk-in clinic (also known as a walk-in centre) is a medical facility that accepts patients on a walk-in basis and with no appointment required. A number of healthcare service providers fall under the walk-in clinic umbrella including urgent c ...
References
General practice
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