Table 2.

Comparison of the Specialty Clinician’s Perceptions of Referral Appropriateness and Need for Follow-up for eReferral and Paper-Based Referrals

	Medical Specialty Referrals			Surgical Specialty Referrals
	eReferral	Paper-based	p-value	eReferral	Paper-based	p-value
Inappropriate referrals	4/152 (2.6%)	7/109 (6.4%)	0.21	2/94 (2.1%)	9/92 (9.8%)	0.03
Consultative questions considered difficult to identify	20/182 (11.0%)	25/126 (19.8%)	0.03	9/95 (9.5%)	38/100 (38.0%)	<0.001
Follow-up visit requested	163/181 (90.1%)	103/125 (82.4%)	0.06	54/93 (58.1%)	77/101 (76.2%)	0.01
Avoidable follow-up requests a	44/160 (27.5%)	33/102 (32.4%)	0.41	7/52 (13.5%)	34/76 (44.7%)	<0.001

^a Only asked when follow-up visit was requested; denominator reflects follow-up visits requested