The MSF Patient Referral Project

In 2021, the MSF Sweden Innovation Unit (SIU) ran the MSF Patient Referral Project in collaboration with colleagues from the MSF Operational Center Barcelona and Athens (OCBA). The project aimed at identifying frequent issues in MSF’s referral systems and designing solutions to these challenges.  

Referrals of patients happens in almost all MSF projects. When a patient is too sick to be treated locally, the team will do their best to refer the patient to a medical structure that is more adapted to the care they need.  

This may sound simple, but in these referrals are often subject to challenges along the entire continuum – from the preparation of the necessary paperwork to go with the patient, to their transportation to and from the medical structure they are referred to and the management of the treatment invoices, should it not be an MSF-run facility as well as other administrative and practical aspects.  

The SIU team worked with colleagues in MSF projects in Sudan and Ethiopia to map existing referral systems to identify areas of improvement. In total, 56 people internal and external to MSF, were interviewed as part of this project.  

Although every project and context is different, the MSF Patient Referral Project team mapped out seven distinct in the referral continuum:  

1. Pre-referral  

2. Referral decision 

3. Transport  

4. Handover 

5. Treatment  

6. Discharge & return transport  

7. Follow-up  

The team found that the most pressing issues during the patient referral process are often related to information sharing and communication. The video below zooms in on some of these challenges and provides an overview of the project’s proposals for overcoming them.