1,500 diagnostic imaging reports go astray in N.W.T due to computer glitch
Software upgrade meant, for 5 months, X-ray, CT scan or ultrasound results weren't faxed to doctors
A team of doctors and nurses in Yellowknife spent the weekend going through about 1,500 diagnostic imaging reports that weren't faxed to the ordering physician or nurse over the space of about five months because of a computer glitch.
"All [the patients affected] have been followed up with or they're in the process of being followed up with," Health Minister Glen Abernethy said on The Trailbreaker this morning.
The territory's deputy minister of health, Debbie DeLancey, said Monday the department only became aware of the glitch on Aug. 6, but it has affected diagnostic imaging reports since April 9.
The diagnostic images — X-rays, CT scans or ultrasounds — could have been ordered for a number of reasons.
"The majority of them would be things related to the bone and joint system or pneumonia," said Dr. Jim Corkal, chief clinical advisor with the Department of Health.
But, he said, "it could go right through to things like cancer or ultrasounds for pregnancy. Diagnostic imaging, or X-rays and CT scans, are very much one of the more common tests that we use to help us to diagnose disease."
Automatic faxes weren't working
About 10,000 diagnostic images were ordered during the five months when the glitch was happening. Most of the reports were sent back to doctors or nurses as per usual by a firm in Calgary. A smaller number of reports go through a fax machine at Stanton.
The computer glitch meant that those reports were no longer automatically faxed to the physician, nurse or nurse practitioner who originally ordered the tests.
That doesn't mean nobody saw the reports.
"They're often cc'd to other individuals so many of them actually got the reports," Abernethy said.
External review ordered
Asked why the glitch was not made public before now, Abernethy said "our first priority was to stop the harm, the second priority is to manage the patients."
Abernethy says he has ordered an external review into the issue.
"Whether it's one person or 100 people where they haven't received the results, this is a huge issue for us and we want to make sure that we get to every patient who has come into the system and has received tests."
Corrections
- An earlier version of this story said that diagnostic images were not being faxed to ordering physicians due to a software glitch. In fact, it was the diagnostic imaging reports that were not faxed properly. The original version of this story also incorrectly implied there was an MRI machine in Yellowknife.Aug 18, 2015 11:00 AM CT
with files from Hilary Bird and Marc Winkler