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Emergency Information 
Upper Limb (Hand Wrist Elbow) Centralized Access - Facilitated Access to Specialized Treatment (FAST)   at
Edmonton Zone and Area
Central Access Healthcare Service
Specialty: Hand Surgery
Connect Care Department: EDMONTON ZONE HAND WRI ELB CAT
Estimated time to routine appointment: Not Available
Alberta Health Services - Edmonton area
CENTRAL ACCESS SERVICES
Referrals for Upper Limb (Hand, Wrist, Elbow) Surgery in the Edmonton Zone are accepted through the Facilitated Access to Specialized Treatment (FAST) centralized access program. The program improves patient access to specialty care by centralizing referral intake, ensuring referrals are complete, and distributing referrals to specialists. Referring providers can choose a next-available surgeon with the shortest waitlist; a specific surgeon, clinic, or site; or an out-of-zone provider. FAST receives the surgical referrals, reviews them for completeness and duplication, and then sends them to appropriate surgeons for triage and booking.
Referrals for Upper Limb (Hand, Wrist, Elbow) Surgery in the Edmonton Zone are accepted through the Facilitated Access to Specialized Treatment (FAST) centralized access program. The program improves patient access to specialty care by centralizing referral intake, ensuring referrals are complete, and distributing referrals to specialists. Referring providers can choose a next-available surgeon with the shortest waitlist; a specific surgeon, clinic, or site; or an out-of-zone provider. FAST receives the surgical referrals, reviews them for completeness and duplication, and then sends them to appropriate surgeons for triage and booking.
ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS
Review reasons for referral table below for eligibility requirements.
Review reasons for referral table below for eligibility requirements.
Referral instructions for primary care, community care, private
providers etc. who do not send referrals via Connect Care.
REFERRAL PROCESS - FOR NON-CONNECT CARE USERS
  1. Add FAST to your Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system.
  2. Prepare your referral using a detailed referral letter:
    • Identify referral reason listed in the Referral Pathway.
    • Include all required information in the Referral Pathway.
    • Use the QuRE checklist to ensure completeness.
  3. Select a referral destination: next available specialist, a named provider or to an out-of-zone provider (Reason why patient should be seen out of zone is required).
  4. Fax completed referral to Edmonton Zone FAST at:
    • 780-643-1235 - Elbow, Hand & Wrist.
    • 780-670-3221 - Other Orthopedic Referrals
  5. Track your referral status in Alberta Netcare eReferral.
  1. Add FAST to your Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system.
  2. Prepare your referral using a detailed referral letter:
    • Identify referral reason listed in the Referral Pathway.
    • Include all required information in the Referral Pathway.
    • Use the QuRE checklist to ensure completeness.
  3. Select a referral destination: next available specialist, a named provider or to an out-of-zone provider (Reason why patient should be seen out of zone is required).
  4. Fax completed referral to Edmonton Zone FAST at:
    • 780-643-1235 - Elbow, Hand & Wrist.
    • 780-670-3221 - Other Orthopedic Referrals
  5. Track your referral status in Alberta Netcare eReferral.
REFERRAL PROCESS - FOR CONNECT CARE USERS
Send an Internal Referral using the Ambulatory Referral Order to Hand Surgery, type EDMONTON ZONE HAND WRI ELB CAT in the “To Department” section and complete order.
Send an Internal Referral using the Ambulatory Referral Order to Hand Surgery, type EDMONTON ZONE HAND WRI ELB CAT in the “To Department” section and complete order.
COMMUNICATION PROCESS
  • Referral receipt to referring source within 7 days.
ADDITIONAL SERVICE DETAILS
Learn more about FAST at ahs.ca/FAST
Learn more about FAST at ahs.ca/FAST
 
CENTRAL ACCESS REFERRAL PHONE
1-833-553-3278 ext 2
CENTRAL ACCESS REFERRAL FAX
780-643-1235
REFERRAL FORMS
PATHWAYS
LINKED SPECIALISTS
CLICK + TO VIEW REFERRAL GUIDELINES
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Routine Reason for Referral
Access Targets convey the clinically appropriate timeframe patients should be seen within, by reason for referral and priority level.
Access Target
Required Information/Investigations
Investigation Timing
Additional Details
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Arthritis of elbow
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
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Arthritis of hand
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Arthritis of wrist
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Carpal tunnel syndrome
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Chronic pain of soft tissue of elbow region
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
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Deformity of wrist and/or hand
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Dupuytren's contracture
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Entrapment neuropathy of elbow
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
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Fracture
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Lesion of bone
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
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Ligament pathology of hand and/or wrist
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Ligament pathology of wrist
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
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Mass of elbow region
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Mass of wrist and/or hand
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Non-degenerative elbow joint pathology
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Olecranon bursitis
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Retained orthopedic hardware in shoulder
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Rheumatoid hand deformity
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Shoulder joint instability
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Shoulder joint stiffness
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Shoulder pain
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
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Soft tissue mass
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
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Suspected tendon rupture
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
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Synovial mass
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Tendon pathology of hand and/or wrist
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Trigger finger
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.
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Wrist pain
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.

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Urgent Reason for Referral
Access Targets convey the clinically appropriate timeframe patients should be seen within, by reason for referral and priority level.
Access Target
Required Information/Investigations
Investigation Timing
Additional Details
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Dislocation of joint
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
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Fracture
Click for Referral Guidelines:
 
.

The primary purpose of the All Locations list is to let the user easily access any location of a healthcare service without going back to the main search screen.

The locations listed have 3 background colors:
  • Green means the healthcare service@location has referral information attached to it.
  • Brown means the healthcare service@location never had referral information attached to it, or it has unpublished referral information.
  • Red means
    • IA changed the healthcare service@location's status to something other than Current
    • It was deleted if it is an ARD healthcare service@location.
Green  and Brown are always at the top of the list. These are the Healthcare Service@Locations with the status of Current.
The Red list at the bottom consists of non-current Healthcare Service@locations that once had Published referral information in the ARD.
If the referral information was never published in ARD the Healthcare Service@location will not show in the Red list.

The secondary purpose of the All Locations list is to allow ARD Administrators to recover (copy) referral information from the non-current Healthcare Service@Locations to ones that are current.

Common Scenario:
A Healthcare Service moves from one location to another. In this case the IA Healthcare Service@Location record will be made defunct (non-current) and a new Healthcare Service@Location record will be created with a current status. In this scenario the captured referral guidelines in ARD can become "orphaned" as they are not attached to any current IA healthcare service.

Categories of non-current or orphaned referral guidelines: INDIVIDUAL and COMMON.
The REFERRAL GUIDELINES section of the profile has the prefix INDIVIDUAL or COMMON to help you choose the method below when transferring referral guidelines from a non-current Healthcare Service@Location to a current healthcare service@location.

Individual referral process
  1. Click on a non-current (Red) Healthcare Service@Location at the bottom of the All Locations list.
  2. The non-current referral info is displayed with the link Copy this Referral Process to another Healthcare Service@Location link on the upper right hand corner. Click on the copy link.
  3. Choose a current location (Green or Brown) from the All Locations list. This will be the Healthcare Service@Location you are pasting the referral info into.
  4. The system will display the Edit Referral Info screen populated with the referral info from the non-current Healthcare Service@Location you viewed in the first step.
  5. Click Save and the referral info is transferred from the non-current Healthcare Service@Location to the current one.
  6. Repeat these steps for each Healthcare Service@Location that needs attention.

Common referral process - 2 sub cases.
Case 1: At least 1 current Healthcare Service@Location with common referral info is with current status for this healthcare service; One or more Healthcare Healthcare Service@Locations where replaced by new one.
  1. Click on any current Healthcare Service@Location whether it has referral info (Green) or not (Brown).
  2. The healthcare service location opens in the Edit Referral Info screen populated with the current common referral info.
  3. Save it. 
  4. All locations will be updated with the common referral information, including all the locations that don't have referral info yet (Brown). The non-current referrals (Red) will also be updated.
Case 2:  All Healthcare Healthcare Service@Locations for a healthcare service are set to a non-current status and replaced by new ones. In this case there is no current additional referral info to copy from, so the only alternative is to pick up the non-current common referral process (Red). Follow the steps described in the section Individual Referral Process above to copy/paste the non-current common referral info to the current healthcare service locations.
Generally we want to replicate current common referral info to new or replaced healthcare service locations. We only resort to copying non-current common referral info if there is no other option.

Remember: Some fields can be location specific with the common referral process:
Parking Instructions, Directions, Parking Map, Wait Time, Referral Phone or Referral Fax.
To update these items you have to edit each Healthcare Service@Location separately.

ADDITONAL NOTES:
  • The info icon after the All Locations drop down will be visible to ARD Administrators.
  • The system doesn't allow you to copy referral information from one non-current Healthcare Service@Location to another.

 

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