Northwestern Ontario is focusing on getting more of their patients connected to the region’s network of electronic medical records (EMR). Physicians point out that this will be a far more effective and efficient way of treating their patients. This view is also shared by the region’s Local Health Integration Network and the province, in general.
The advent of the Physician Office Integration program translates into over 150,000 patient records that will travel with them throughout Northwestern Ontario. These records will be directly fed from the 12 hospital in that area to over 25 local clinics. This system will be represented by 168 doctors and nurse practitioners.
The CEO and president of eHealth Ontario, Greg Reed stated that healthcare-related software integration was nearly impossible until recent times. Once this limitation was overcome, a patient could have a test performed in a hospital and get the results immediately at a doctor’s office. “It’s a huge convenience”, Reed says.
He also added that this system will cut down on the past delays that patients experienced when attempting to make appointments with specialists. Reed also pointed out that approximately one-third of specialist appointments occur prior to specialist obtaining the necessary test results to show up. In some cases, it can take up to three weeks for those results to appear.
Theresa Bruni, an Ontario pediatrician, indicated a 5,000 stack of paper items that would be needed to be addressed each year under their old system of patient record keeping. She points out that secured EMR systems are the expected evolution in patient care. This is especially true considering the vastness of Northwestern Ontario.
She states that even though many patients are from the outlying regions, their records are arriving as quickly as those generated by Thunder Bay Regional. She also notes that another advantage to treatment is the ability to quickly spot abnormal patient test results. The original problem had to do with patients who are seen in their local community hospitals with no direct communication access to the major institution. This has changed, since patient lab and blood work are able to be accessed instantaneously. This eliminates the need to having paper records sent from another hospital, reviewed and then placed in the patient’s chart.
The statistics speak for themselves. According to eHealth Ontario, each month 21,000 reports are sent through the system by the Physician Office Integration Program (which went “live” this fall). This effectively eliminated 1,100 clinical administrative work hours (scanning, filing and records distribution).