Table 2.

Outcome definitions, data sources, and analysis plan.

Outcome	Definition	Data source	Analysis plan
Change in unnecessary referral rate	Referrals deemed manageable at the referring facility without transfer	Platform records+specialist response field	Chi-square test and multivariable logistic regression
Change in referral initiation–to-response time	Interval from referral submission to specialist acknowledgment (min)	Platform time stamps	2-tailed t test or Mann-Whitney U test and multivariable regression
Change in bed use	Proportion of beds occupied at the receiving facilities	Platform dashboard+hospital records	Descriptive statistics and pretest-posttest comparison
Unanswered referral requests	Referrals without documented specialist response	Platform records	Frequency and rate calculation
Proportion of referrals answered within the urgency window	Percentage of referrals receiving a specialist response within predefined urgency-specific response targets	Platform time stamps	Frequencies, percentages, and chi-square test comparison
Referral acceptance and decline rate	Proportion of referrals accepted vs declined by the receiving facility	Platform records	Frequencies and chi-square test
Cases managed through remote advice	Referrals resolved via bidirectional specialist advice without transfer	Platform communication logs	Frequency and descriptive subgroup analysis
Patient satisfaction	Patient and attendant survey domain score	Structured survey (Multimedia Appendix 1)	Means and SDs and Likert distribution
Health care professional satisfaction and usability	Health care professional survey domain score	Structured survey (Multimedia Appendix 1)	Means and SDs and thematic integration