PEI Cancer Treatment Centre (PEICTC) Referral Guide for Physicians and Nurse Practitioners

Read this page carefully to prevent unnecessary delays.

For more specific guidance, call 902-894-2027, Monday to Friday between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. If you require an emergent patient referral outside of these hours, page the on-call medical oncologist or radiation oncologist at 902-894-2111.

Speak to an oncologist before completing a referral form for:

• all inpatients and emergency cases
• sick patients where access to supporting documents is difficult
• cancers without a tissue diagnosis, where next steps to a diagnosis are not clear
• patients moving to PEI who are receiving active treatment in another province

How to refer patients to the PEICTC

If you use the Collaborative Health Record (CHR), you must complete the referral form available on that platform.

If you do not have access to the CHR or are an out-of-province health care provider, you must complete the online referral form linked at the bottom of this page.

Important information for referring providers

If you have already made a referral by phone call (for inpatients) or faxed a letter of referral, you are still required to complete the online referral form. To avoid duplication of effort, there is an option to indicate the clinical information has already been provided. The online referral form is a required tool to support a safe transition in care by standardizing the minimum amount of information required for every patient to be efficiently triaged.

If you have already provided the clinical information and you have support staff available to you, they may complete the online referral form on your behalf.

The PEICTC cannot accept referrals for routine follow-up care (i.e., cancer patients who do not require cancer treatment) related to the lack of a primary care provider.

The PEICTC does not provide a benign hematology service; however, in exceptional circumstances, patients with these diagnoses may be provided with an appointment based on a clinician-to-clinician discussion between the referring care provider and a medical oncologist with this sub-specialty area of expertise (when available). 

Patients are to remain under the care of the referring physician until seen by an oncologist at the PEICTC.

Patients receiving treatment at the PEICTC are to remain under the care of their primary care provider for all non-cancer-related medical needs, or under the care of any related specialty care providers for those specialized needs as appropriate (i.e. post-surgical complications).

All patients must be made aware of their diagnosis by the referring physician prior to being referred.

All referrals must include any background documents that are not available in the PEI Clinical Information System (CIS). This includes pathology reported and imaging done out-of-province, consultant physician reports not in the CIS, discharge reports, and OR reports for procedures performed out-of-province. 

For current wait times for oncology, see the Cancer Treatment Wait Times web page. 

Important information for your patient

Most patients will not receive a consultation appointment until all the necessary documents and reports are received or available on the CIS.

Once the PEICTC has all the necessary documents, they will call your patient with an appointment date.

Most patients will be invited to participate in a group orientation session at the PEICTC before their consultation date.

Patients can learn more about cancer care on PEI including the referral and treatment process, wait times, resources and support programs, by visiting the PEI Cancer Treatment Centre web page.