AHS apologizes for delays in care resulting from improperly processed referrals

Alberta Health Services (AHS) says it is taking immediate action to expedite care for patients who had referrals to community health-care providers delayed.

In a statement on Friday, the provincial health-care provider admitted an internal audit completed last month found that some referrals to external providers in the central zone were not properly processed, leading to a delay in care.

An additional investigation found patients in all five AHS zones – Edmonton, Calgary, central, north and south – may have been impacted.

Of the 14,000 referrals, the Edmonton zone is most affected with 10,000, with Calgary seeing 3,300 affected and the rest of the zones accounting for 1,500 of them.

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"AHS takes any potential impact to patient care very seriously, and we are deeply sorry for any patient care delays this issue may have caused," Athana Mentzelopoulos, president and chief executive officer of AHS, told CTV News Edmonton on Friday.

"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."

When asked if anyone may have been harmed or have died as a result of the delays, AHS says there's no indication of that right now.

AHS says it handles about 100,000 referrals a year.

Officials will be contacting any impacted patients directly to address their questions and concerns, AHS says.

AHS says the issue applies to referrals from it to health-care providers who are outside of AHS and not Connect Care users, such as specialty clinics and allied health professionals like physiotherapists.

"These providers operate in partnership with AHS but work in a community setting, and typically have their own electronic medical record system that does not allow for referrals to easily flow from Connect Care to their systems directly," the release said.

The Health Quality Council of Alberta is conducting a third-party audit of the issue. AHS says it is conducting its own internal investigation.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Nahreman Issa