The Alberta Referral Directory (ARD) is a secure, online listing that provides access to service and consultant demographics, referral guidelines and instructions about how to facilitate efficient and effective referrals, including referral forms. The ARD centralizes referral information for Alberta Health Services (AHS) consulting physicians and AHS scheduled ambulatory services.
To date, ARD content has been viewable only to persons with a registered user name and password. Soon this logon barrier will be removed. ARD information will be openly available via the Internet, recognizing that the contained information is already in the public domain but fragmented and sometimes difficult to access. Full information access, with editing rights, still requires a valid userid and password.
With ARD use expanding, all physicians are encouraged to update their referral information, or have responsible clinic staff take care of this for the clinic and all providers. AHS consulting clinicians can use the guide for help accessing the ARD and updating or correcting information found there.