Sallie Kirsch, PhD, Clinical Nurse Specialist, Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center;
Sarah L. Thomas, Ambulatory Access Manager, Children's Hospital, Seattle

      This session will describe a successful approach to transform the way referrals are managed at a pediatric academic medical center. Specific examples of centralized processing of referrals and scheduling and the end result of improved satisfaction for all stakeholders will be discussed.
      After this presentation you will be able to:

• List three strategies to shape external and internal demand for specialty services.
• Recognize appropriate principles of Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) related to a centralized scheduling process and apply these principles to your practice setting in the context of new patient scheduling.
• Discuss the essential steps in implementing a centralized referral processing and scheduling center, including the differentiation of the challenges of scheduling in medical versus surgical sub-specialties.