Alberta Health Services leapt further into the electronic age this week, launching two websites promised to help patients with their medical care questions.
MyHealth.alberta.ca is touted to be the future "one-stop shop" for someone suffering from or being treated for an ailment.
A $33-million project, the portal contains roughly 9,000 doctor-approved bits of information telling the reader how to prepare for medical testing and visits, what treatments, be they "official" or a home remedy are recommended. And if you are new to an ailment, it could even to tell you if you need to see a doctor.
That is phase one. By 2015 when phases two and three are complete, the plan is to have patient medical records available to both the patient and medical professionals who might be working on a file, from just about anywhere in the province.
Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky said such an initiative is especially important to Alberta, a place with a diverse population spread far and wide.
"Distance must not discriminate," he said. "We live in an important time right now where there is a voracious appetite for this kind of information gathering and information sharing, and we want it right at our fingertips. That's what we're going to have."
Having medical records available online to both patients and doctors is a first for Canada.
Canada Health Infoway — a group dedicated to the modernization of the health care system in Canada — contributed $2.5 million to the project.
"Not everyone has access or the savvy to go around searching the Internet or looking for this information," said Richard Alvarez, CHI president. "To have the trusted portal is so essential. There's a lot of bad information on the Internet, giving people bad advice."
Local MLA Ken Allred was on-hand for the announcement, made at Sturgeon Community Hospital in St. Albert Wednesday, and was surprised and delighted with the scope of the project.
"Probably 20 years ago now I remember the futurist Frank Ogden, who talked about all this technology," he said. "We'd be able to access our health care records from afar. But that was all just talk."
Wait times online
The other website launched this week was waittimes.alberta.ca, which is the return of information taken offline in 2008. The revised system is calculated in percentiles and shows the percentage of patients having their tests and procedures done in a given number of weeks.
The numbers can be compared between facilities, and even between doctors within facilities.
Right now the wait times for 52 elective surgical procedures and diagnostics can be browsed.
Currently this information is not linked to information on what the target wait times are, but those targets are available on the main AHS website and a connection could be made in the future if Albertans want it, said Zwozdesky.
The website cost about $500,000 to develop, and will require about 15 per cent of that annually to maintain.
