General Internal Medicine Rapid Referral Clinic

COVID-19 Information

In response to the COVID19 pandemic, from at least March 30th to July 31st, the clinic will be running at limited capacity with only 3 afternoon clinics per week on Tuesday to Thursday. As of August 3^rd, the clinic will increase to 4 afternoon clinics per week on Monday to Thursday.

The clinic’s top priority will be the management of any consults or follow up visits which require urgent intervention (triaged to be seen within 14 days). To support public health requirements and minimize unnecessary traffic in the clinic and hospital, the majority of patients will have their care delivered through virtual methods such as telephone or video visits where appropriate.

Referring physicians whose patients have had their consultation or follow up through the clinic deferred until after the COVID19 pandemic are encouraged to seek consultation through the eConsult system should they need additional advice.

This page will be updated with new information as the COVID19 pandemic’s duration and clinical demands for the General Internal Medicine Division at The Ottawa Hospital become clearer with time.

About

The Rapid Referral Clinic (RRC) is a shared clinic between the General Internal Medicine (GIM) residents and the Attending physicians from the Division of GIM located at The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) Riverside Campus.

It was initially created in 2010 to provide short term follow up to patients discharged from inpatient units at TOH under GIM’s care or patients seen in consultation by GIM in the Emergency Department. The goal of the clinic is to improve patient flow within TOH and provide rapid follow up for hospital patients in order to minimize their length of stay & reduce the chance of readmission. The clinic has also become a longitudinal training component for the 4th and 5th year GIM residents.

Since its creation and inclusion of the GIM residents’ clinic, the RRC has also come to provide a significant number of GIM consultations for primary care providers’ (PCPs) patients in the Ottawa region. Given the limited access to community internal medicine in Ottawa, the RRC looks to continue to provide this service as its caseload permits.

Scope of the Clinic

• Patients discharged from GIM’s care at TOH are prioritized.
• The RRC focuses on patients with an urgent need for:
  • workup of undifferentiated internal medicine pathologies.
  • management of multi-system internal medicine problems.
• The RRC does not accept referrals for:
  • ongoing primary care.
  • long term follow up of internal medicine conditions (ex: coronary artery disease, type II diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).
  • differentiated, single system internal medicine issues (ex: rheumatoid arthritis flares, inflammatory bowel disease management or congestive heart failure optimization).
  • Due to current clinical demands, the clinic will decline referrals for conditions whose acuity would not require assessment within 90 days.

Referring Physician Information

• Patients require referral from a physician.
• Submit requests via EPIC or EPIC care link in the community.
  • Faxes will continue to be accepted at this time. Referring physicians should include any relevant history, investigations and consultation notes.
• See above for clinic scheduling during COVID19 pandemic.
• Consultative recommendations will be provided to the referring physician and/or the PCP.
• Chronic disease management is not within the scope of this clinic and at most patients will be seen a few times until a management plan or diagnostic certainty is achieved.

Patient Information

• Phone calls from patients requesting consultation or follow up cannot be accepted, even if patients were cared for by one of our doctors as an inpatient at TOH. All patients need to be assessed by their PCP (family doctor) first and then referred by their PCP as they deem appropriate.
• The clinic does not have any walk-in appointments.
• This is a group clinic and patients will be seen by the physician or resident who is scheduled for the clinic that day. Patients may only be seen for one or a few visits and may be seen by different physicians at each visit.
• Patients receive an automated reminder phone call before the clinic visit

Contact Information

Telephone Number – 613-798-5555 x 81557
Fax – 613-738-8373
Location – 6th Floor General Internal Medicine Clinic,
1967 Riverside Dr.,
Ottawa, ON K1H 7W9

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Last updated on: April 7th, 2025