Alberta is setting a new standard for clinics, hospitals, cancer centres, mental health facilities, continuing care facilities, and other professional health care facilities across the province. Under the umbrella of Alberta Health Services, over 1,300 independent health information systems are currently being used to assist with the management of patient information. By finding a way to connect these systems via a centralized platform, the whole healthcare team—including patients—will have the best possible information throughout the care journey.
As it stands today, these health information systems are unable to provide a complete history of a patient’s health due to the inability to “speak” to one another. This causes patient information to be fragmented across the various facilities attended. For example, medical records at a hospital may be out-of-date compared to a frequently visited facility like a local walk-in clinic. The health information that one medical facility has could vary wildly from another.
This is why Connect Care is so important. Connect Care’s electronic health record system (EHR) connect these information systems together, creating a seamless network across Alberta.
This offers several advantages for healthcare professionals, the economy, and patients alike, including:
- Allowing authorized healthcare professionals, patients, and loved ones seamless access to comprehensive and up-to-date patient information via desktop computers.
- Support for transitions of care through a single patient record (e.g. a walk-in clinic transferring a patient’s health information to a specialist’s facility).
- Transferring labs’ diagnostic imaging results via a patient’s electronic medical record.
- Robust functionality of ordering and dispensing medication to patients and recording medication history.
- Secure communications between care team members or care teams. Request advice or follow-up information on patients.
- Access to analytic tools that chart a patient’s progress.
However, the most important aspect of Connect Care is its dramatically improved support for healthcare professionals. By bridging disparate health information systems together and closing the information gap, a comprehensive and complete picture of a patient’s health is gained. This allows medical professionals to deliver a greater degree of safe, high-quality care, leading to better health outcomes.
The implementation of Connect Care will be everywhere that AHS (or its partners) provide healthcare to, including:
- Hospitals
- Clinics
- Continuing Care
- Cancer centres
- Mental health facilities
- Community health sites run by AHS
- Calgary Lab Services locations
- And more
AccessEMR is excited to be a part of the collaboration of health information across Alberta. We’ve built our high-performance software from the ground up to adhere to all American and Canadian Health Information standards including, PIPEDA, FHIR, HIPAA, ONC, and HL7. This positions our software perfectly for North America’s imminent transition to integrated electronic-based medical information systems. If your medical facility is looking for an innovative, future ready EMR solution capable of securely exchanging patient data with EHRs in Canada and the United States, book a consultation with us today to learn how we can help.