Judicious resource managers or administrative intermediaries: A systematic review of family physician perspectives on the administrative process of referring patients to other clinicians in high income countries

Family physicians play a key role in coordinating and managing patient referrals to specialist care. While central to patient care, the referral process has been described as a disproportionately time-consuming and administratively demanding process, contributing to family physician burnout, stress, and attrition. Given the growing recognition of how administrative burden contributes to burnout, stress, and physician attrition from family medicine, it is crucial to examine the nature and impacts of this workload.