Peterborough Regional Health Centre and six other hospitals in Ontario’s central east region are partnering to launch a new digital clinical information system (CIS) to provide unified personal health records across the hospitals.
The CIS will run via Epic, one of the world’s largest health records software companies, and will mean each of the 1.5 million people in the central east region who receive hospital care will have a single, unified personal health record across the partner hospitals.
PRHC is partnering with Campbellford Memorial Hospital, Haliburton Highlands Health Services, Lakeridge Health in Oshawa, Northumberland Hills Hospital in Cobourg, Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay and the Scarborough Health Network.
The system will go live in December.
Dr. Lynn Mikula, PRHC’s chief of staff and chief medical executive, says the CIS project has been a decade in the making and is one of the “most important” transformations a hospital can make, more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to share health information.
“I am so pleased and privileged to be able to participate in the planning, collaboration and hard work being done at PRHC and with our partners across the region to prepare for this significant change later this year,” she said.
“Once implemented, the CIS will provide every hospital patient and their care team with real-time access to the patient’s health information in one place, which will support clinicians in making the best possible decisions about every individual’s treatment and care.”
PRHC says the new regional CIS will mean:
- One digital record for each patient across seven hospital organizations in the central east region.
- Patient access to a user-friendly and secure portal called MyChart to view their health information and upcoming appointments.
- Implementation of evidence-based best practices across the care continuum.
- Timely access to information to support clinical decision-making, including test results, medication information and other essential health information.
- Improvements in patient safety features, including barcode identity validation at the patient’s bedside.
- Less duplication and more efficient processes, contributing to a more sustainable health system.