Sask. forced to pause healthcare payroll system after 1 week due to software bugs

Healthcare scheduling and payroll system shut down WATCH: The provincial government has shut down a new payroll and scheduling system after one week. Wayne Mantyka has the details.

A new portal system for managing payroll, human resources, scheduling and finances for the provincial health-care system has been put on pause after numerous complaints about bugs with the software.

The Administrative Information Management System (AIMS) was supposed to replace 82 separate systems and integrate them into one system, according to a website explaining the new system.

This was meant to improve "data accuracy, reliability and integrity to plan, forecast and report" while providing "a more positive experience" for healthcare professionals, thus leading to better results for clients, patients, residents, and families.

Rather than a harmonized and standard system, healthcare workers complained of the bug-filled software.

"There's been a certain amount of, lets say barriers," Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN) president Tracy Zambory said in an interview with CTV News before the health authority reverted to its old system.

"They're working very hard to try to get themselves around them, so at this point we're in a wait and see mode to see how things are going to roll themselves out."

Zambory and the union membership didn't need to wait much longer as the Saskatchewan Health Authority sent a message to employees on Friday advising staff that as of 5 a.m. all employees should revert to pre-AIMS scheduling processes.

According to the group's website, roughly 100 meetings and information sessions "with thousands of individuals throughout Saskatchewan’s health system" have been held in advance of the rollout dating back to 2019.

On its website two days before AIMS was paused, the nurses union posted an update to its website acknowledging members had issues with scheduling, leave requests, and other interactions with the system.

The post went on to say SUN filed a provincial grievance.

After the system was paused, another post notified its membership of the changes.

"At this point, the SHA has stated that their teams are in the process of migrating data from AIMS to the existing system. No timeline has been provided to suggest how long AIMS will be paused," the post said.

"SUN has met with the SHA and received very little concrete information about how this reversion will proceed."

On Monday, another post asked nurses to "ensure they review all aspects of their pay cheques" in advance of the first payday since the switch of systems on Nov. 10.

‘INCREDIBLY DISAPPOINTING’

Health minister Paul Merriman spoke to reporters following Question Period on Monday, where he admitted the initial outcome of AIMS was not preferable.

“My word to them is, this is unfortunate,” he said, referring to healthcare professionals affected by the system rollout.

According to Merriman, the government did have backup contingencies to deal with login and other system issues.

However, they were at risk of being overrun when the decision was made to pause AIMS.

“We did plan that if there was problems we would pause it immediately to make sure the payroll and the scheduling was done properly,” he said.

“I’m confident we will get AIMS working, I just don’t have a timeline for that right now.”

NDP MLA Vicki Mowat said the pause was “incredibly disappointing” but not unexpected.

“We’ve heard concerns for years now from healthcare workers about what this rollout would actually look like,” Mowat said after Question Period. “I don’t understand how the health minister is surprised that there have been significant errors in this system so far.”

Errors that are more concerning, seeing as the project had been in development for a decade, according to Mowat.

“Unfortunately it’s just another example of government mismanagement. We’ve heard that this project is 10 years long and over $100 million. There needs to be some accountability for that government spending,” she said.

“So I think there are a lot questions people have, and assurances they need from their government that this is going to be fixed and that any errors are going to be identified.”

In response to the issues for healthcare workers, Mowat said she believes the government owes them an apology.

“I think that the workers definitely deserve an apology for what happened,” she said. “And really some transparency around what occurred and how the minister is going make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”