Alberta Health Services completed its eighth launch of Connect Care, which aims to bring staff and physicians at healthcare sites, including two Covenant Health sites in Central Zone, onto a common provincial information system.
The Connect Care initiative supports best practices across AHS, and enables health records from AHS and its subsidiaries and partners to be accessed through one system. It also provides clinicians with common decision-making support, AHS said in a media release on Saturday.
“Each Connect Care launch brings more front-line healthcare workers, physicians and patients together to give healthcare teams a more complete health history for patients, access to consistent information on best practices and resources at their fingertips, while improving our ability to keep information private and secure,” said Athana Mentzelopoulos, AHS president and CEO.
“Healthcare teams can also communicate with patients and each other more easily.”
The eighth launch of Connect Care involves all five AHS zone across 129 towns and cities in Alberta. There are now more than 118,400 staff, physicians and other healthcare providers using Connect Care.
There will be a total of nine Connect Care launches. The launches started in November 2019 and will continue to the final implementation in fall 2024. When fully in place, approximately 125,000 staff and physicians will be using Connect Care at 682 sites across Alberta.
Albertans who have visited a site where Connect Care is in place can access MyAHS Connect, an online patient portal where people can see their health information, test results and medications, manage appointments, and communicate securely with their AHS healthcare team.
The new Connect Care facilities transitioned to the new information system at 5 a.m. Saturday.
“Connect Care helps AHS physicians and other healthcare providers do their best possible work. Having a common clinical information system across AHS means patients aren’t repeating their health histories as often and care teams have access to complex histories and medication lists,” said Dr. Peter Jamieson, vice-president of quality and interim chief medical officer.
“All launches to date have included plans to ensure the care we provide is never compromised during the transition. Patients may see AHS staff taking a little extra time to complete their charting and other tasks during launch, and we appreciate the patience of the public while our teams adjust to these improvements.”
Sean Chilton, AHS interim vice-president and chief operating officer of clinical pperations and EMS, said the scale of Connect Care makes it "one of the largest clinical system implementations" in the world.
“We could not do this without the input and support of patients, physicians, nurses, midwives, other front-line staff, technical teams, and patient and family advisors who have been involved in every step in getting us to this the launch," said Chilton.