Clarification on patient registry
Complaint to Ombudsp.e.i. leads to more transparency on government website
Health P.E.I. has cleaned up the language on the patient registry website after a complaint to Ombudsp.e.i.
Sandy Hermiston, P.E.I.’S ombudsperson, said in an interview at her office March 19 that it was contacted by a concerned citizen recently who felt family doctors or nurse practitioners were taking on new patients who had not been on the registry as long as others in the same community.
That has always been the case, but Hermiston felt there should be more transparency about the process.
Health P.E.I. has since clarified the language on the patient registry page.
“Each family practice provider will determine how and when they accept new patients into their practice,” Health P.E.I.’S website now reads. “This can be from the registry, or another method that works best for their practice (e.g. their own wait list, family members of existing patients, etc.). Patients assigned from the patient registry are assigned in chronological order, so those on the registry the longest within their location are assigned first.”
Hermiston said that is fine but it needed to be stated clearly.
“They do not (have to pick from the list) and that is fair,” Hermiston said. “Doctors and nurse practitioners are a private business. They’re like your plumber or your dentist or any other practice that is taking clients. They have to right to decide how they do that so they might have their own waiting list … or they might have to take patients whose family members do not have care. They might take those on because then they’re providing care to a whole family and that makes a lot of sense.”
Hermiston said she really wants to stress that her office
is not criticizing doctors or nurse practitioners because that would not be fair.
The patient registry has more than 37,000 people waiting for a family doctor, including Hermiston.
Hermiston said the registry is useful because it gives people access to Maple – a virtual health-care service – and it gives doctors a resource if they choose to take on new patients.
But doctors can also bypass the registry and take on family members of existing patients.
Dr. Laura O’connor, provincial medical director of family medicine in P.E.I., said doctors do take family members but the vast majority of people taken off the registry list were on it to begin with.
“The registry is well known to all the practices so any family physicians or medical homes that are finding capacity know to call the registry," O'connor said.
O’connor said patients are selected in chronological order depending on location.
Everton Mclean, senior communications officer with Health P.E.I., said doctors will also take patients on the registry off for a period of time who are in need of seeing a specialist.
“That’s not something that Health P.E.I. can formally police with these physicians because (we) have to give them the clinical flexibility to be able to do so,” Mclean said.
“We strongly encourage them to take from the registry.”
The issue was also brought up in the P.E.I. legislature on March 19.
Green party MLA Matt Macfarlane said patients on the registry are in limbo, not knowing when or if they will ever get a call. He pressed Health Minister Mark Mclane for information.
Mclane said government will continue to work on the list and review it once in a while for accuracy.
In an email to Saltwire, Health P.E.I. said if a patient is assigned to a primary care provider, a physician or a nurse practitioner, from the registry, their name is removed from the total of people who require a provider, which is the number presented on the website. However, it is maintained in the patient registry database with status changed to assigned, for data keeping purposes.
Health P.E.I. also said the registry is periodically reviewed for accuracy and patients who have left the province, died or otherwise no longer require a provider are removed at that time. The last review was done in 202223.