Electronic Health Records across the country

[NeuroD]

St Joe's in Hamilton recently switched to a nearly paperless system by Epic (the same company that won Alberta's EHR contract in September). While it still has UI bugs, I really like it. Not only can you find everything you need easily, but you can create custom templates, order sets, smart text, and best practice warnings/notifications which really helps efficiency and accuracy.

This got me wondering what the state of EHRs is across the country. For example, Hamilton Health Sciences is still on paper. Sunnybrook appears to be half way there, with an EHR thats mostly based around free text. Vancouver General is similar to Sunnybrook, although while I was on an in-patient service there, our SOAPs and orders were 100% paper.

[JohnGrisham]

It is pitiful in most places.  

[NeuroD]

1 minute ago, JohnGrisham said:

It is pitiful in most places.  

Care to expand? Specific hospitals?

[Birdy]

I got my Dovetale (Epic’s name at St Joe’s for the non-Hamilton people) training last week and I think I’ll like it, but I won’t be using the live environment for the first time until tomorrow. I’ve heard some good things about Epic and I like the customizability. 

Ive been told my home province - being so small - has spent several years looking into a possible universal EHR for in and outpatient, with the aim to have every clinic in the province that uses an EHR use a specific one. I have no idea how advanced into the process they are, but for a province with a total of just over 200 doctors and only two major hospitals, I think it’s achievable and I think with the right EMR it’d be quite a boon. 

HHS isn’t 100% paper. There’s always Meditech but it’s only really useful as a read-only system. The input looks absurdly annoying. 

[Organomegaly]

1 hour ago, Birdy said:

I got my Dovetale (Epic’s name at St Joe’s for the non-Hamilton people) training last week and I think I’ll like it, but I won’t be using the live environment for the first time until tomorrow. I’ve heard some good things about Epic and I like the customizability. 

Ive been told my home province - being so small - has spent several years looking into a possible universal EHR for in and outpatient, with the aim to have every clinic in the province that uses an EHR use a specific one. I have no idea how advanced into the process they are, but for a province with a total of just over 200 doctors and only two major hospitals, I think it’s achievable and I think with the right EMR it’d be quite a boon. 

HHS isn’t 100% paper. There’s always Meditech but it’s only really useful as a read-only system. The input looks absurdly annoying. 

I'm a huge fan of meditech personally. It looks archaic but once you know how to use it it's easy to navigate and find everything you need, with a built-in link to clinical connect 

[Mithril]

Vancouver Coastal Health is undergoing a transition to a near paperless EMR  at the hospitals called Cerner.

[Birdy]

14 hours ago, Mithril said:

Vancouver Coastal Health is undergoing a transition to a near paperless EMR  at the hospitals called Cerner.

PEI’s hospitals use that. It’s not too bad, but it could be way better. 

[Edict]

On 2/25/2018 at 1:12 PM, PhD2MD said:

St Joe's in Hamilton recently switched to a nearly paperless system by Epic (the same company that won Alberta's EHR contract in September). While it still has UI bugs, I really like it. Not only can you find everything you need easily, but you can create custom templates, order sets, smart text, and best practice warnings/notifications which really helps efficiency and accuracy.

This got me wondering what the state of EHRs is across the country. For example, Hamilton Health Sciences is still on paper. Sunnybrook appears to be half way there, with an EHR thats mostly based around free text. Vancouver General is similar to Sunnybrook, although while I was on an in-patient service there, our SOAPs and orders were 100% paper.

 

Alberta is the best from what I know. Hamilton Health Sciences is in the stone age (our EMR recently went down for 4 hours overnight (scheduled) and Clinical Connect, the backup crashed due to overload, so no labs for 4 hours, even the core lab couldn't help us). Haven't used Joe's in Hamilton but it seems good. 

Vancouver I believe has a decent EMR but it doesn't have the MAR.. 

Honestly, EMR isn't ideal almost everywhere. Most places are alright, as in they are useable and don't cause too many issues but aren't the most user friendly. 

 

 

[MDwannabe02]

Northwestern Ontario is doing a decent job with EMR. All inpatient services within the Northwest LHIN (local health integrated network) are connected via Meditech (not the archaic Hamilton Health Sciences version though). Some outpatient services are connected too, but many family docs still need to rely on faxed discharge reports from hospitals for their patients. I haven’t worked or studied in the Northeast, so I can’t comment on their system, but I assume it’s similar. 

[jlkhhylyiluh6]

P    O    W    E    R    C    H    A    R    T

O

W

E

R

C

H

A

R

T

[NutritionRunner]

I’ve worked at two CHCs in Ontario - both use/used Nightingale on Demand.  However, a new EMR will be forthcoming - it will be trialed over the course of this year.

The biggest problem is that referrals and reports from any external agency are still received by fax, and the medical secretaries have to scan them into the patients’ charts.  Not terribly convenient.  It would be nice if the hospitals’ EMRs in this city would communicate with our EMR, but that doesn’t happen.