A recent internal audit at Alberta Health Services (AHS) has revealed an issue with referrals being delayed.
The audit was completed in late September and showed that some patient referrals to external healthcare providers in the AHS Central Zone were not processed correctly, causing a delay in care in some cases.
Upon further investigation, they determined that the issue was occurring outside of the Central Zone, with patients in all five AHS zones having been impacted.
AHS identified roughly 14,000 patients in the province who could have had their referrals not properly processed through Connect Care, the new electronic health record system.
According to AHS, the issue applies to referrals from AHS to healthcare providers who are outside of AHS and are not Connect Care users, such as allied health professions and specialty clinics.
The healthcare providers are AHS partners, but work in community settings and, generally, have their own electronic medical record system that does not allow for an easy flow of referrals to go directly from Connect Care to their system.
Now, the Health Quality Council of Alberta (HQCA) will be providing an independent third-party review of the systems and operational process to determine the cause of this issue and how it can be prevented in the future.
AHS has stated they will work closely with the HQCA during the review.
Foothills County falls under the Calgary zone, and it is reported that 3,329 of the affected patients in Alberta are in this zone.
Even though the investigation is still in the early stages, 31 patients in the province have been identified as requiring a follow-up, immediately.
These patients could have experienced a negative outcome due to the referral delay.
"AHS takes any potential impact to patient care very seriously, and we are deeply sorry for any patient care delays. Our clinical teams are working urgently to assess every delayed referral, to determine what impact the delay may have had on each patient and to schedule those patients as quickly as possible," AHS said in a media release.
"While AHS is reviewing a large number of referrals to ensure a clear picture of the issue, to date, the potentially affected patients are a small number of the total referrals being assessed."
AHS, on average, issues roughly 100,000 referrals each year.
To prevent this issue from happening in the future, AHS has implemented several measures, including training on processing patient referrals, improving the electronic delivery of outgoing referrals, and improving auditing procedures to mitigate future challenges.
AHS will contact the impacted patients where the potential for adverse clinical impact has occurred.
AHS has also taken action to expedite care for the patients who may have been affected by the delayed referrals.
"AHS is dedicated to providing Albertans with the high-quality care they need, when they need it, and we are deeply sorry that some patients did not receive that in a timely way," said Athana Mentzelopoulos, President and CEO of AHS.
Medical information, including referrals, can be accessed through MyHealth Records.