ABSTRACT
Background: Alberta, Canada is home to approximately 4.4 million people, served by a publicly funded provincial healthcare system known as Alberta Health Services. Physicians are able to access lab results on any patient they are providing medical services for through an existing electronic health data repository called Alberta Netcare. In 2020, the provincial government mandated that patients have access to all of their own laboratory test data, including hematology, chemistry, microbiology, molecular genetics, and pathology. The goal of this project was to implement a user-friendly patient portal to allow patients to access their own lab data, no matter where in the province it was drawn or obtained. Design: Currently, Alberta uses 5 major Laboratory Information Systems (LIS). Labs are pooled into a provincial data repository (see Figure 1). Our aim was to create a secure patient portal called MyHealthRecords (MHR) that pulled test result data from the provincial repositories and displayed it to patients accurately and securely. The MHR viewer references ALREP (a consolidated lab repository) which contains the pan-Canadian LOINC observation code database (pCLOCD/LOINC) name in the HL7 lab result message. The lab data elements are then displayed in MHR. For more complex tests (i.e. pathology reports) these results are generated from the Netcare data repository and rendered to the portal viewer, or sent as a PDF document directly from the source LIS. Results were validated by comparing the original LIS, Netcare, and the MHR viewer to ensure concordance. This validation process was completed for all tests that would be displayed on MHR, with physician sign off required. Results: A limited test menu (accounting for 50% of labs by volume) was initially launched in 2017, followed by a 2nd launch in Feb. 2021, providing patients' access to 95% of laboratory tests by volume. The user's account was secured by using the already existing My Alberta digital ID. The portal can be accessed online or via a secure app. In addition to test results being displayed, the portal also contains links to information about the various lab tests, what they mean, and how they are collected. Conclusions: As of August 2021, >99% of laboratory results are now available directly to patients, with over 1 million active users across the province. This has not only benefited patients, but also provided easily accessible vaccination records, of particular importance during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. (Table Presented).