Community prescribers who have Alberta Health Services (AHS) clinical privileges may refer patients into AHS Medical Outpatient Units (MOUs) or Emergency Departments (in smaller centres) for recurring therapies such as iron infusions, antimicrobials, blood products, etc.
Once Connect Care goes live at a site and becomes the legal record of care, all orders for patient care must be entered into the Connect Care clinical information system, and only prescribers who are trained in the system can be selected as Authorizing Providers for orders. This has implications for sites anticipating Connect Care launch.
As a site prepares to launch Connect Care, existing (standing) paper orders for treatments that will be administered in MOUs or Emergency Departments must be entered into the system prior to each Connect Care launch wave. This ensures the orders can be activated when the patients arrive post-launch for their appointments. A single Connect Care Authorizing Provider must be designated for each therapy plan. Sites are encouraged to establish an approach for managing standing orders on which the ordering prescriber has not completed Connect Care training or does not have AHS clinical privileges.
Recognizing possible practice variation from facility to facility and zone to zone, the Chief Medical Information Office (CMIO) is working with zone clinical leadership to implement an appropriate workflow to accommodate community prescribers who cannot be selected as Authorizing Providers during launch preparations. For more information, please see the below resources: