The purpose of this article is to make public the characteristics of a patient referral protocol, which has been prepared in order to facilitate communication between professionals in different levels of care, and to encourage their coordination.
This protocol allows the communication between the Emergency Unit Nurse (EUN) and the Outpatient Case Management Nurse (OCMN), two professionals holding very distant positions within the Andalusian public health system.
This procedure has been set out with a two-way communication:

• From the EUN to the OCMN, for the latter to manage any necessary interventions.
• From the OCMN to the Emergency Coordination Unit, in order to have information available about special care when patients require EUN care.

Criteria for patient referral have been developed for the first pathway: from EUN to OCMN. A computing tool called “ENLA Referral” has been created­, and training sessions have been established for those professionals who are the target users for this tool. This was started on June, 2012, there was a first assessment on January, 2013, and its development will continue in consecutive stages.