CII - Frequently Asked Questions for Specialists

Physicians must meet three prerequisites before enroling:

• Up-to-date clinic Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA)
• Clinic must be live on Alberta Netcare
• Physician must use a CII-enabled EMR: Accuro, Ava, CHR, Healthquest, Med Access or PS Suite 

CII is a free technology with no implementation costs or annual fees. However, like any new practice tool, some modest administrative time is required to adopt and integrate into clinic workflows. 

To support participation in CII, Primary & Preventative Health Services has established a $12 million CII/CPAR Acceleration Grant, offering specialists up to $2000 in adoption funding. Grant funds are available on a first-come, first-served basis until March 31, 2026, or until funding runs out. Learn more.

Increasing the availability and accessibility of patient information helps clinicians make informed decisions and reduces delays in care. With CII, specialists can enhance care coordination and improve continuity of care, giving providers access to clinical recommendations and care management plans. This information is especially critical when patients visit the emergency department or change family doctors.

Enroling in CII is easy and hassle-free and there is little to no change in physician workflow after going live. 

In most EMRs, the physician or team member simply checks a box indicating they want to send a copy of the consult report to Alberta Netcare before faxing the report to the referring provider. With CII, physicians may see reduced administrative work, limiting duplication of work and unnecessary tasks.  

Detailed guides for each EMR can be found here. 

No. While all physicians are encouraged to enrol, participation is tied to an individual physician.

For specialists, CII facilitates the sharing of consultation reports, PFDs, operative reports, encounters and patient summaries with other providers in the patient’s circle of care. Information sharing occurs at the discretion of the physician, who retains authority over what is disclosed. Specialists can provide the same EMR data as family physicians, but this is not a requirement.  

Future phases of the CII project will expand the scope of information sharing, including more data elements and additional clinical reports. For more information, see which reports can be shared with your EMR here.

Reports can be revised before they're selected for upload to Alberta Netcare. The workflow will vary slightly depending on the EMR vendor, and in each case, the provider has a choice of which consult reports to submit. Detailed guides for each EMR can be found here.

Physicians have the option to revise or withdraw consult report submissions as needed.

Yes, you will still be required to follow the CPSA standard of practice for referral consultation. The benefit of sharing a copy of your consult report to Alberta Netcare is that it is now available to all health care providers, without the need to ‘refax’ or mail additional copies. It also signals to other providers that you are managing that aspect of the patient’s care (e.g. you are their endocrinologist).

To determine if your PIA is up to date for CII adoption, physicians or Custodians can conduct a self-assessment. PPHS has also developed a resource for PIA addendums that covers required changes for EMRs to accommodate health information disclosures. 

As part of CII enrolment, Custodians are asked to sign an endorsement letter, which explains that the clinic will be enabling CII. The letter must be signed by the clinic’s Custodian and cc’d to all participating providers at the clinic. If the clinic has no Custodian, then the endorsement letter must be signed by all participating providers before being submitted to the Office of Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC).

All data transferred from the EMR vendor’s hosting site to the PPHS data centre moves through a dedicated web service with strong encryption. The data centre and Alberta Netcare offer high standards of security, with firewalls, intrusion detection, anti-malware systems and redundancy of power supply and hardware to ensure high uptime and data integrity. Only authorized Alberta Netcare users will have access to Consult Reports uploaded via CII. For more information, see the CII/CPAR Privacy and Security FAQ.

Patients have the right to request that physicians limit the amount of health information they disclose through CII, with physicians maintaining control over which consult reports are submitted and maintained in Alberta Netcare.  

Physicians must apply their professional judgment and weigh the patient’s concern against other factors, including patient safety, the potential importance of that information to another health care provider, legal requirements, professional college standards and other factors. In all cases, decisions should be communicated to the patient and documented in the EMR.

Participating in CII has been a time saver for both the ER and the PCN and has resulted in improved quality of care, consistency in treatment plan implementation and improved patient outcomes

The ability to upload consults to Alberta Netcare has been invaluable, especially the ability for physicians to have access to consults done in private clinics.

I believe every Specialist clinic should be a part of this initiative as it can help bridge the communication gap between Specialists, Family Physicians and other healthcare providers within the health system.

The creation of a provincial patient registry system and more integration of community-based EMRs were both requests that originated from Alberta physicians and were advocated for by the AMA and others.  As a result, the Community Information Integration (CII) & Central Patient Attachment Registry (CPAR) project was formed in 2017 to achieve these goals.  

Alberta Health is the main project manager and works with a variety of contractors and partners (e.g. AMA, EMR Vendors, Alberta Netcare) to maintain and evolve the CII system over time.

More information can be found at:

• CII for Specialists | Alberta Medical Association | AMA 
• Community Information Integration (CII) & Central Patient Attachment Registry (CPAR), Alberta Netcare Learning Centre 

If you’re ready to onboard to CII, the first step is to submit a Confirmation of Participation form.   

Questions? Contact AMA-ACTT at [email protected]