Telus Health system glitch affects hundreds of patients

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — Patients across the country may have missed seeing timely medical results because of a software issue involving an electronic medical record program.

Most of the patients were in Newfoundland and Labrador, where medical test results for 615 patients between November 2017 and last month were delivered late to health care providers, who may have been delayed in bringing the results to patients.

The province uses Telus Health’s Med Access software, which is also used in Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan. In a statement, Ohad Arazi of Telus Health said the error affected a total of 876 patients across the six provinces. Health Minister John Haggie said Newfoundland and Labrador has the widest pool of affected patients, accounting for almost three-quarters of the total, because the province’s health-care system has integrated the program more extensively.

Arazi said Telus Health has contacted “all applicable physicians” to communicate with their patients about the error, which was related to software coding.

“During a software update of our Med Access Electronic Medical Record solution, we became aware of a coding issue that prevented some physicians from viewing select clinical reports. We apologize for this situation and will work diligently to prevent this unique workflow issue from recurring,” Arazi wrote.

The issue did not impact the accuracy or privacy of the results, Arazi said.