June 26, 2025

In this issue: 

• Changes to AMA direct payments. What do you need to do?
• Congratulations to the winners of the 2025 ADIUM Student Elective Travel Grant 
• Reminder to specialists: Connect Care survey
• Is your project eligible for the Connected Care Innovation Grant?
• Primary Care Alberta updates
  • New measles resource from AHS
  • Measles: Standing exposure advisories in North Zone
  • Reminder: Measles exposure location resource
  • Lab Bulletins:
    • Ordering changes for CBC and differential 
    • New order process for stool kits
    • Routine C. diphtheriae toxin testing discontinued for skin infections
  • New Discharge Planning Guide for Indigenous clients
  • New topic tab on Alberta's Pathway Hub: Hand and Wrist
  • New Access to Information Act: What primary care teams should know
  • Changes to COVID-19 vaccination program
  • New: Measles communications toolkit
  • Salmonella outbreak in Canada linked to salami
• MD Financial
  • Investing as a physician: A primer
• Community Connections
  • Help test the new provincial primary care sleep apnea clinical pathway 
  • Seeking participants for study exploring racial discrimination experienced by health care workers

Changes to AMA direct payments.

What do you need to do?

Effective immediately, CII CPAR, PMSP, CME and MLR direct payments are changing to electronic funds transfer (EFT). 

To receive your next payment, please log in to your AMA member dashboard to add your banking information for an EFT payment.

• If you would like to receive your next payment via EFT deposited to your personal account, please log in to your AMA Member Dashboard to update or confirm your banking information in the ‘My Profile’ widget. 
• If you would like to add a professional corporate account to your profile, please contact the     Membership Services team at membershipgeneral@albertadoctors.org.

Congratulations to the winners of the 2025 ADIUM Student Elective Travel Grant

ADIUM Student Elective Travel Grants were awarded to 20 Alberta medical students who traveled to complete required medical electives over the last year. 

The ADIUM Student Elective Travel Grant was established in 2000 to help medical students offset the high costs of attending medical school in Alberta. The grant is sponsored by ADIUM Insurance Services Inc., AMA’s wholly owned insurance agency. Each year, twenty $500 grants are randomly drawn (ten for each school) from student entries. 

Congratulations to this year’s recipients and thank you to everyone who applied!

Reminder to specialists: 

Connect Care survey

If you’re a specialist physician with experience using Connect Care, please take a few minutes to complete the survey sent to you by ThinkHQ on June 3, with a reminder on June 20. It takes just 5–8 minutes, and your unique link is included in those emails. The deadline to respond is June 30 at 11:59 p.m. 

Commissioned by the Specialty Care Alliance (SCA), this survey will help us understand how your experience with Connect Care may have changed since the 2023 benchmark. Your confidential responses will: 

• Guide advocacy efforts. 
• Support comparisons with the recent AHS Connect Care survey. 
• Inform motions at the AMA Representative Forum.

ThinkHQ, an independent research firm, is administering the survey to ensure anonymity and objectivity. 

Haven’t seen the email with the link yet? Take a quick peek in your junk or spam folder—sometimes it hides there! Still no luck? Just reach out to marc@thinkhq.com for assistance.

Your voice matters. Thank you for sharing your experience.

Is your project eligible for the Canada Health Infoway Connected Care Innovation Grant?

The 2025 Connected Care Innovation Grant is an initiative from the Infoway Centre for Clinical Innovation in Digital Health (CIDH), which supports national efforts to accelerate the adoption of healthcare interoperability. Through the CIDH, Infoway continues to drive initiatives that encourage engagement with clinical leaders and learners, supporting the adoption of Connected Care solutions. 

Clinicians, health provider groups and health organizations and providers are eligible applicants, but all reasonable community-focused proposals will be considered.

Primary Care Alberta updates

The following PCA updates have been provided for your information: 

• New measles resource from AHS 
• Measles: Standing exposure advisories in North Zone
• Reminder: Measles exposure location resource
• Lab Bulletins:
  • Routine C. diphtheriae toxin testing discontinued for skin infections
  • New order process for stool kits
  • Ordering changes for CBC and differential 
• New Discharge Planning Guide for Indigenous clients
• New topic tab on Alberta's Pathway Hub: Hand and Wrist
• New Access to Information Act: What primary care teams should know
• Changes to COVID-19 vaccination program
• New: Measles communications toolkit
• Salmonella outbreak in Canada linked to salami
• Changes to COVID-19 vaccination program 
• New: Measles communications toolkit
• Salmonella outbreak in Canada linked to salami

Investing as a physician: A primer

Sponsored article

Physicians have unique investing needs that require a tailored approach to balance growth and security. Understanding your financial needs and developing an investment plan that aligns with your career stage and risk tolerance is crucial. This article provides strategies to help you make informed decisions, achieve long-term financial success and ensure your investment plan addresses your specific goals as a physician. 

Community Connections

Help test the new provincial primary care sleep apnea clinical pathway

A new provincial primary care clinical pathway for obstructive sleep apnea has just launched on the Alberta Pathways Hub. Help test and improve this new pathway by participating in a formal usability test. 

Participants should be a primary care provider in Alberta with a general practice (your practice is not specialized to a specific patient population). Session is approximately 60-minutes by video call. Time is compensated. 

If you are interested, please contact us.

Email: sleepresearch@ucalgary.ca

Phone: 403-220-5838 

View a pdf of the pathway 

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Seeking participants for study exploring racial discrimination experienced by health care workers in Canada

The aim of the project is to better inform supports offered to racialized health care workers and policies aimed at reducing experiences of racial discrimination in health care settings. 

To be eligible to participate, participants should: 

• Be 18 years old or older 
• Live in Canada
• Speak and read English or French
• Self-identify as a racialized person (i.e., non-White) 
• Be currently or were previously employed as a health care professional in a care facility (e.g., hospitals, rehabilitation centres, or community health centres) 

Participants can take part in this project by responding to our online questionnaire (approx. less than 20 minutes to complete) and/or by doing an individual one-on-one interview (approx. 60 minutes). Feedback from physicians is of particular interest. 

Participation is voluntary and confidential. This study has received approval from the University of Ottawa Research Ethics Board. 

Take the survey now. 

To participate in an interview, email elisabeth.dromer@uottawa.ca.

Promoting a local charitable health-related event? 

Recruiting physicians and medical learners for a medical study? 

Seeking AMA member participation in a survey? 

The AMA receives many requests to promote local events, research participation opportunities and surveys to our members. We consider all requests based on specific criteria and general relevance/appropriateness. Please note that, unless explicitly stated, the AMA is not associated with or responsible for items listed in Community Connections.

In case you missed it

Wildfires: Review your risk and coverage

Upcoming events

Facing the Drain of Medical Practice

June 26 

Media Relations 101

July 10, 2025 

July CII/CPAR Connect

July 22 

Alberta Society of Radiologists 2025 Annual Scientific Conference

November 2 - 8

View all upcoming events on the AMA website.

Have an event you'd like to promote?

Review our criteria and submit your event.

Recognition Roundup

July:

National Injury Prevention Day

July 7 

National Drowning Prevention Week

July 20 - 26 

International Self-Care Day

July 24

Recommend a special date.

Last issue's top stories

PCA Updates 

Meet your new President-Elect

In the June 26
MD Scope Classifieds
you'll find listings for:
 

- Physicians wanted

- Locums wanted

- For sale or lease
- Services

More AMA publications

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