Department of Medicine Weekly Roundup - Oct 10 - Important update: Change in SMH Family Health Team lab work flow effective Oct 15
Dear valued St Michael's Specialist Colleagues:
We wanted to inform you of some changes to the SMH Family Health Team (FHT) workflow beginning Tuesday October 15th that may have implications for some of you and some of your patients.
As you may know, the SMH and SJH Family Health Teams are not transitioning to Epic, they are maintaining their separate Practice Solutions (PSS) EMR.
a. SMH Family Health Team lab sites
Currently 3 sites of the SMH FHT have Unity phlebotomists on-site that draw blood. These labs are not open to the general public, but are generally restricted to patients of the Family Health Team. FHT patients will at times come to these SMH FHT lab sites with requisitions from their Unity Health specialist, which is fine.
Please be aware that as of Tuesday October 15th, blood and other biological samples collected at the FHT sites will be picked up and processed by LifeLabs. If you are aware that your patient will be completing bloodwork you have ordered at one of the FHT sites, you will need to provide them with paper Ministry of Health lab requisitions. Tests ordered on Unity Health requisitions or Epic will not be able to be completed at Family Health Team sites. Any results will be coming back to you from LifeLabs, not Unity labs.
b. CCing SMH Family Health Team physicians/NPs on lab investigations
We also wanted to inform you that once Epic goes live on November 30, any Family Health Team provider that is CCed on lab investigations ordered by another physician at Unity Health will be receiving the results of these investigations by fax. These results will not be sent electronically to the Family Health Team EMR (Practice Solutions) and the Family Health Team physicians/NPs will not be looking in Epic for results. Please be aware that immediate follow-up of any investigation is the responsibility of the ordering physician.
Please reach out to us if you have any questions.
Curtis Handford and Karen Weyman