Glitches force N.S. Health to put text message reminders on hold

Nova Scotia Health is temporarily halting a text notification system it launched Monday.

That's because at least 2,100 texts sent to the phones of Nova Scotians to remind them of medical appointments Tuesday and Wednesday had incorrect information, mostly about appointment times. Others didn't make it clear if the appointment was virtual or in-person, or simply advised of an appointment that didn't exist.

Scott McKenna, chief information officer at Nova Scotia Health, said those were the three main issues discovered after text reminders began going out on Monday.

"We had some indication late in the day [Tuesday] that we may have some challenges, in some areas, and today was the big issue and we dove into things this morning," McKenna told CBC News on Wednesday.

"Yesterday it was over 21,000 texts that went out, and of that it was around 10 per cent of those that had an error in the time."

McKenna said the "root cause" of the problems was related to the fact clinics and health providers use "over almost 900 systems in the province" to manage appointments, and information about appointments is not always located in the same field on all forms.

He said tentatively booked but unconfirmed appointments also generated text reminders that were sent in error.

When it launched the new service, Nova Scotia Health heralded it as a way to cut down on the number of appointments missed simply because people had forgotten about them.

"Managing healthcare appointments just got easier with two new appointment reminder options: push notifications through the YourHealthNS app, and text messages for most Nova Scotia Health and IWK Health appointments," said a news release.

McKenna said the system was launched after extensive testing that started last summer, but those trial runs did not use actual patient data.

"We can test in data and we can test in technology," said McKenna. "We can't test on live data. This is real patient data and in no way would we ever use that data in testing."

McKenna said no problems were detected with the reminder notices sent to Nova Scotians who used the YourHealthNS app. Those reminder messages will continue to be sent.