Overview#
An ambulance service often needs to hand structured information to a GP practice or hospital before, or instead of, a full downstream record exchange. A non-conveyance case may need a formal GP referral. An incoming patient may need an arrival notification that fits the receiving organisation's existing national messaging channel rather than a bespoke local integration.
The ePCR Healthlink Clinical Messaging module gives services a standards-based way to package those communications from the encounter workflow and deliver them through the national Healthlink channel. It supports referral-style and arrival-style messages so field and control workflows can trigger structured external communication without forcing crews to duplicate the record in another system.
Last Reviewed: 2026-04-17 Last Updated: 2026-04-17
Key Features#
- Structured GP Referral Messaging: Send a referral-style clinical summary when a patient needs follow-up outside the ambulance service.
- Arrival Notification Messaging: Notify a receiving facility that a patient episode is on the way or has been registered in the pre-hospital workflow.
- Encounter-Driven Message Creation: Build the outgoing message from the existing encounter and patient record rather than asking staff to retype it.
- Facility-Aware Delivery: Route the message to the relevant GP practice or hospital endpoint for the receiving organisation.
- Delivery Governance: Record message identifiers and delivery outcomes so services can prove what was sent and when.
- Fail-Closed Delivery Behaviour: Avoid presenting an unavailable integration as if delivery succeeded when the destination channel is not configured.
Use Cases#
- GP Follow-Up After Non-Conveyance: A crew treats a patient on scene and issues a structured referral to the patient's GP for next-day review.
- Hospital Arrival Notification: A receiving facility receives a structured pre-arrival style message before the patient reaches the door.
- Alternative Pathway Escalation: A low-acuity pathway still triggers formal downstream communication when the disposition requires it.
- Regional Service Standardisation: Multiple stations and crews use the same messaging pathway instead of ad hoc email or phone handover.
Integration#
- Electronic Patient Care Report Clinical Workspace: Messages are assembled from the live encounter and patient context.
- Hospital Handover and Pre-Alert Workflows: Healthlink messaging can complement other handover and pre-alert patterns in the service.
- National Service Connectors: Delivery aligns with the wider national-services layer instead of a one-off local connector.
- Audit and Reporting Services: Message activity can be reviewed as part of operational and clinical governance.
Open Standards#
- HL7 v2.4: the module uses a widely adopted healthcare messaging standard for structured referrals and arrival notifications.
- HL7 REF^I12: referral messaging can align to the standard referral trigger event pattern.
- HL7 ADT^A04: arrival-style registration notifications can align to the standard patient-registration event pattern.
- SFTP over SSH: delivery can align with a standard secure file-transfer model where the receiving service uses batch or file-drop exchange.
- ISO 8601: message and delivery timestamps use a standard date-time representation.