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Primary Care Alberta Clinical Updates - July 16, 2026
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Memo on expanding clinical appropriateness of MRIsAcute Care Alberta is using evidence‑based guidance in alignment with Choosing Wisely Canada (CWC) guidelines to support appropriate MRI use. An existing process for reviewing the clinical appropriateness for MRI knee referrals is expanding to include MRI hip (osteoarthritis) and MRI shoulder (chronic or non‑traumatic shoulder pain) referrals in patients aged 55 and older. This approach helps ensure imaging supports patient care.
Primary care providers and nurse practitioners are encouraged to review the attached memo for details.
Co-design opportunity: New cancer diagnosis pathways
Cancer Care Alberta is searching for interested primary care providers to collaborate on the development of evidence-informed cancer diagnosis pathways. Upcoming projects will focus on lung cancer, ovarian cancer, and neuroendocrine tumours. Family physicians, nurse practitioners and other primary care clinicians can help by providing practical insights into primary care workflows, challenges and opportunities.
Your expertise will ensure these pathways are relevant, feasible and valuable for clinicians. Participation may involve reviewing draft materials, providing feedback through working groups or consultations, and helping identify opportunities to strengthen care coordination across the diagnostic journey.
If you are interested in participating in one or more of these projects, please contact the Guidance and Resource Unit team at: CancerDiagnosisPathways@cancercarealberta.ca.
eReferral's eConsult service is here for you: Get specialty advice through Alberta Netcare Did you know that specialty advice is closer than you think? Healthcare providers with Alberta Netcare access can send an eConsult to 27 specialties and sub-specialties across Alberta and receive a response within five calendar days.
The best part? eConsult is billable and available 24/7, 365 days a year. In some cases, it can also reduce time waiting for specialty care by helping patients prepare before their appointment or even prevent a referral from entering the system.
More specialties are continually added — the provincial Sleep Medicine and Adult Psychiatry teams, as well as the Calgary area Geriatric Medicine team, have recently joined.
For a list of specialties accepting eConsults, go online. For more information, including instructions on how to submit an eConsult, visit the Alberta Netcare Learning Centre.
Lab bulletins:
Effective Feb. 19, if ammonia is ordered at an acute care site that does not perform testing onsite, samples will be frozen and sent on scheduled couriers. This is a change from being automatically sent by stat transportation, and applies to Edmonton area suburban hospitals. A list of impacted sites is available in the lab bulletin. If results for ammonia are required stat at the impacted sites, please contact the laboratory to request stat transportation.
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Effective Feb. 19, if ammonia is ordered at an acute care site that does not perform testing onsite, samples will be frozen and sent on scheduled couriers. This is a change from being automatically sent by stat transportation, and applies to Edmonton area suburban hospitals. A list of impacted sites is available in the lab bulletin. If results for ammonia are required stat at the impacted sites, please contact the laboratory to request stat transportation.
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Effective Feb. 19, if ammonia is ordered at an acute care site that does not perform testing onsite, samples will be frozen and sent on scheduled couriers. This is a change from being automatically sent by stat transportation, and applies to Edmonton area suburban hospitals. A list of impacted sites is available in the lab bulletin. If results for ammonia are required stat at the impacted sites, please contact the laboratory to request stat transportation.
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Effective Feb. 19, if ammonia is ordered at an acute care site that does not perform testing onsite, samples will be frozen and sent on scheduled couriers. This is a change from being automatically sent by stat transportation, and applies to Edmonton area suburban hospitals. A list of impacted sites is available in the lab bulletin. If results for ammonia are required stat at the impacted sites, please contact the laboratory to request stat transportation.
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