CALGARY -- More than 100 people are needed by Alberta Health Services (AHS) to help perform COVID-19 testing in the province, with more than half of those posted for a new position called a Community Tester.

AHS posted the casual positions on its website and says more than 60 of the jobs are available. It says anyone from a number of health-related disciplines who can perform a throat or nasal pharyngeal swab can apply.

"Most notably it could be an RN, LPN, paramedic or an allied health occupation like occupational therapist, pharmacist or speech pathologist," the agency said in a statement.

"Staff are responsible to prepare for and conduct testing via Nasal Pharyngeal swab or throat swab on all age groups with both symptomatic and asymptomatic populations at various assessment centers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic."

AHS says it is hiring the additional staff in order to meet the demand of COVID-19 testing and result reporting.

The province said Thursday 14,678 tests had been conducted over the past 24 hours. During the entire pandemic, 1,365,496 tests have been conducted on 1,030,261 Albertans.

GLITCH CAUSED TESTING DELAY

AHS says a technical issue with its autodialer system is to blame for delayed test results for a number of residents last month.

Officials say approximately 5,000 Albertans did not receive their negative test results when they were supposed to between Sept. 10 and 29.

As a result of the glitch, AHS is now reaching out to those affected over the phone or via text message. The agency says it didn't affect any residents who had positive cases of the illness as those patients are contacted directly.

AHS adds the error has already been fixed.

"The error that caused this issue was identified and corrected on Sept. 29, and monitoring has confirmed that this issue has not impacted any further results beyond Sept. 29," officials say in a release.

"This issue did not impact the delivery of results to the MyHealth Records system. Pharmacists and physicians also received all results, as anticipated, without delay."

During the affected time period, AHS says more than 224,000 COVID-19 results were delivered to Albertans via text or autodialer.

The notifications that were missed make up only three per cent of that total.

Further information about AHS testing procedures can be found online.