TORONTO – Orion Health, a leader in population health management and healthcare integration solutions, announced that Alberta Netcare eReferral, initially implemented in 2014, will go live to healthcare providers across the province over three phases.

• In September 2017, eReferral will start enabling Advice Requests for receiving specialties with a goal to reach 69 specialties within two years;
• In February 2018, eReferral will start enabling more sites to receive Consult Requests (referrals for face to face visits), with initial focus on high volume services with access concerns; and,
• Later in 2018, notifications to providers and patients of referral status will be enabled.

Many of Alberta’s health services focus on emergent and urgent patients, which means that non-urgent patients tend to wait for face-to-face specialty appointments without knowing if they actually require speciality attention.

Advice requests focus on specialists who provide advice to physicians for non-urgent questions. This support for patients and providers in the community helps to reduce the time patients spend waiting for specialty care and possibly prevent a referral from entering the system. If a face-to-face consult is required, the patient may be better prepared and the referring provider may initiate treatment prior to the appointment.

“We’re excited for eReferral to become accessible to even more Albertans. It will help assist communications between providers and their patients,” said Gary Folker (pictured), EVP and country manager for Orion Health Canada. “The solution allows healthcare providers to collaborate, understand why the patient has been referred to them and determine who made the referral – all of which will lead to overall better informed decisions.”

In 2014, the Alberta Netcare eReferral was made available for lung cancer, breast cancer, and hip and knee joint replacement surgery and was one of Canada’s first paperless referral solutions. It has since allowed Alberta Netcare users the ability to securely submit, track and manage referrals in real time.

The automated referral solution reduces the likelihood of lost, duplicated or incomplete forms. It uses a standardized template and checks the document for completeness before the form can be submitted. This ensures that healthcare facilities receive proper information about a patient and allows for improved patient safety.

About Orion Health
Orion Health is a leading population health management company and is one of the world’s foremost providers of electronic health records (EHRs) and healthcare integration solutions to healthcare organizations. Worldwide, Orion Health solutions are used in 30 countries by more than 300,000 clinicians. In Canada, thousands of clinicians and hundreds of provider facilities and OEM partners rely on Orion Health to facilitate data exchange between hospitals, health systems and EHRs, resulting in improved care coordination, increased cost savings and efficiencies, and enhanced quality of care. More information can be found at http://www.orionhealth.com.