When Lauren and Bryan McNeil arrived at Royal Jubilee Hospital (RJH) in June for Bryan’s outpatient surgery, they were aware that a new electronic health records system had recently been put in place.
“I think it’s about time. It’s even safer now for patients,” said Lauren, who heard about the new system and its safety measures from her sister who works as a nurse at RJH. “It makes sense,” added Bryan. “Now I know for sure I’ll be given the right medication rather than someone else’s.”
The increased safety of bar-code verified medications is just one of the patient care benefits that come with Island Health’s most recent upgrade to the electronic health records system at Victoria’s two largest hospitals.
“To have these tools at our fingertips to stop us in our tracks when an error is about to unfold is life-changing not only for the patient, but also supports us as care providers,” said Gillian Kozinka, executive director for clinical operations at Victoria General Hospital (VGH).
Handheld devices a “second set of eyes”
Nurses will now use a handheld device to first scan the patient’s identification wristband and then the medication they are about to receive, to verify the correct match.
“It’s like having a second set of eyes all the time,” said Mackenzie Rampton, RN in renal care at RJH. “You can go into the patient’s file on the computer and see when the medication was scanned. It’s another warning, another flag.”
The new system replaces handwritten paper orders. Instead, orders for a patient’s medications, tests, imaging and other requests are instantly shared with health care colleagues so they can see and act upon them, saving time, decreasing errors and improving safety. Electronic orders can also help prevent patents being sent for unnecessary or repeated tests and provide a more robust picture of a patient’s care in hospital to their primary health care provider.
All three of the Island’s largest acute care hospitals – RJH, VGH and Nanaimo Regional General Hospital (NRGH) – have now fully transitioned to the new system.
“The electronic health record provides care teams with a comprehensive source of data on their patients, all readily available at their fingertips,” said Melanie Gilbey, an RN and senior specialist in clinical informatics who supports medical and clinical teams as they begin using the new system. “Care teams across all disciplines can access the same chart simultaneously to provide effective and efficient care. They can view a patient’s previous consultations, lab results and documentation from community care teams.”
Other benefits for patients include cutting down on the need to repeat their medical history and medications each time they transfer between units or even to an increasing number of other sites and services owned and operated by Island Health, for example in community health services or long-term care.
In her role as an obstetrician and gynecologist at NRGH, Dr. Regina Renner has worked with this system for a number of years and came to support colleagues in the Labour and Delivery unit at VGH in their first days of using the new system.
Dr. Renner points to smoother transitions in care with the new system.
“The nice thing is that the receiving physician can review the documentation, the notes, the medications, the orders all before the patient even arrives,” she said, adding this detailed, immediate information can make a difference in care decisions that are made while the patient is en route, thereby ensuring a smoother transition in care for both patient and providers.
Dr. Mary-Lyn Fyfe, Island Health’s Chief Medical Information Officer, has been a champion for quality improvement and safer patient care through full use of the EHR for many years.
“Our patients are at the centre of this change that continues to expand through Island Health sites and services,” she said. “Information and functionality in the EHR not only provide benefits for each patient but also provides us with a deeper understanding of the population of patients we serve. We then can partner across the region to deliver improvements in the way we deliver healthcare.”
