Clinical prioritisation criteria

Clinical Prioritisation Criteria (CPC) are clinical decision support tools that will help ensure patients referred for public specialist outpatient services in Queensland are assessed in order of clinical urgency.

CPC will be used by both referring practitioners when referring into the Queensland public hospital system and Queensland public specialist outpatient services when determining how quickly the patient should be seen (urgency category).

CPC have been developed to improve patients’ specialist outpatient experience. They aim to ensure:

  • Equitable assessment of patients regardless of where they live
  • Specialist outpatient appointments that are delivered in order of clinical urgency
  • Patients are ready for care at their first specialist outpatient appointment
  • Improved referral and communication processes between referrers and specialist outpatient services

Developed by clinicians

A Clinical Advisory Group (CAG) was established for each medical specialty and a medical specialist appointed as the Clinical Lead.  CPC are developed by a multi-disciplinary team of clinicians to ensure that the criteria are clinically relevant.

Clinical Excellence Queensland would like to acknowledge the valuable contribution of Queensland Health staff and primary care clinicians during the development of Clinical Prioritisation Criteria. We would also like to recognise the utilisation of reference material from state, interstate and international sources throughout the development of CPC.

Please note this is not an exhaustive list of all conditions considered for outpatient services

Last updated: 9 August 2023

© State of Queensland (Queensland Health) 2023

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