Swift Current area health care workers flag more issues with AIMS

Some healthcare employees near Swift Current claim the province's AIMS IT system is leading to missing paycheques. Keenan Sorokan reports.

Healthcare workers in the Swift Current area are calling on the province to provide some emergency funding because of major payroll and staffing disruptions linked to a new IT system.

Some Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) employees working in the former Cypress Health Region say they haven’t been paid on time and critical shifts are going unfilled as schedules are incomplete or incorrect due to the launch of Administrative Information Management System (AIMS).

“Patients in hospitals, residents in care facilities and home care clients are not getting the care they need and deserve because AIMS is not scheduling enough staff,” SIEU-West president Lisa Zunti said.

Zunti said of the 1,300 members in the area, anxiety is rising with many workers not receiving proper compensation. Any attempts to resolve the issue are done through a union grieving process or a payroll inquiry, both of which take more time than employees would like.

“The problem is the grievances take time,” she said. “And if I am getting paid three days from now and I don’t get my pay, I don’t have that kind of time to wait for a grievance process to fix this.”

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AIMS is designed to replace 80 aging and non-integrated systems to manage payroll, scheduling, human resources and finances for the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA), eHealth, Saskatchewan Cancer Agency in addition to other organizations.

The development of AIMS can be traced back to 2018, but it became widely known in November 2022 when SHA attempted to go live with the software. However, system defects such as failed staff scheduling, and payroll time entry caused the health authority to revert back to its original systems after a period of four days.

Since then, the SHA has been launching through a phased approach.

Nearly three years later, Zunti said the same issues originally flagged during the troubled launch are still present. Since the launch in the Swift Current area on Sept. 1, Zunti said nearly 100 grievances have been filed about AIMS issues.

“The issues we’re seeing in Cyprus need to be fixed now,” Zunti said. “The workers who have already been harmed by AIMS need to be made whole now.”

The SHA says teams have begun using the time validation and scheduling components of the system, which is the final component of AIMS to be introduced. As of mid-October, nearly 7,000 health system employees are using the full scope of AIMS.

“We recognize that some team members may face challenges as they adapt to these new systems, and we are committed to supporting them and addressing issues as they arise,” a statement from the SHA said.

The statement went on to say work is ongoing to resolve scheduling and payroll questions as employee feedback continues to refine the system.

“When fully implemented, AIMS will provide a centralized platform that gives health care employees improved tools to manage their schedules and employment information, while enhancing data consistency across the province,” the statement said.

Saskatchewan NDP MLA Jared Clarke joined Zunti in calling for the province to send emergency funding to affected employees rather than wait for lengthy union grieving processes to play out.

“You’ve worked your full two weeks of time and your paycheck comes in at $73, which is what we’ve heard from one member. That’s unacceptable,” Clarke said.

Originally set to cost be operational by March 31, 2021, at a cost of $86 million - AIMS is forecasted to cost $250 million when implemented, according to an December 2024 update from provincial auditor Tara Clemett.

The Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital cost $285.9 million to build.