Your Picture of Health
Your Picture of Health
By Barbara McConnell, chairperson of the PECMH Foundation
I don’t know about you, but now that I’m a “person of considerable life experience”, I find I’m making far more visits to healthcare specialists and clinics now than in past years. I’m not happy about it, but it is reality, so I have to suck it up.
The “arrival” scenario is predictable….a review of my health history, family medical history and current meds and clinical therapies. That’s good. It’s important to ensure that information about me is correct and current.
A person’s healthcare record and family medical history are among the most critical tools healthcare professionals use for ongoing care or to get started on a new diagnosis.
Most hospital systems have all that information on internal records and logically readily accessible. But the hospital in the city down the road might not have it. In an unfortunate situation where acute care in a hospital is needed, we’d be explaining our situation from scratch…or worse, we might not be able to communicate it at all. Sad to think about it, but that could be a life or death situation.
It’s good to know that health care professionals in our region are taking steps to do something about it. In what’s called an integrated regional healthcare information system (RHIS), the professionals are compiling patients’ records electronically so they’re readily accessible for healthcare applications in six hospitals in eastern Ontario: Quinte Health; Lennox and Addington County General Hospital (Napanee); Kingston Health Sciences Centre; Providence Care; Brockville General Hospital; and Perth & Smiths Falls District Hospitals. Not to put too fine a line on it, but an integrated regional system has the potential to save lives.
At North York General, which already has an integrated healthcare information system, administration estimated that over five years it has saved the lives of 150 patients suffering from pneumonia and COPD alone.
You might ask how can that be? Without getting into the fine detail, part of the answer lies in a patient’s records being accessible at all hospitals in a region. Mistakes made in such areas as diagnosis, in misunderstanding handwritten instructions or prescriptions, or in patients being unable to communicate can have a devastating effect. It’s been well proven that regional HIS lead to a better quality of care.
In the six hospital network, the HIS currently being implemented is called “Lumeo” with the catch phrase “Better Insights. Brighter Outcomes”. You’ll hear more about it over the coming months.
Lumeo will be an all encompassing electronic file of medical records for everyone who receives health care, e.g., specialists, clinics, prescriptions, etc. in any one of the six hospitals. Physicians, nurses, technicians and any other health care professional will enter medical information into the system to create a chronological picture of your health care journey including all results from lab results to MRI tests. By creating and using this standard of care across the region, overall efficiencies can lead to better outcomes.
But there’s more. Through what’s called a patient portal, we’ll each be able to use our cellphones, tablets and computers to log onto the system to view our records…doctors’ and nurses’ notes, tests such as x-ray notes, lab results and more. You name it. We’ll have a personal window on our current and past medical histories. What’s more, we’ll be able to use the portal to send and receive non-emergency messages from our doctors, clinics, etc. We’ll be able to make and change appointments, ask questions, get prescriptions renewed, educate ourselves on our medical condition, and more. This system will truly give us a powerful tool to participate more fully in our own health care.
Because the Prince Edward Memorial Hospital Foundation’s mission is to advance health care for the people of our County, we’ll be supporting this new system and it will be implemented in our new hospital.
If you'd like to know more about the system or our local hospital, we'd love to hear from you! Call us at 613-476-1008 ext. 4507. Donations can be made by visiting the foundation’s website at www.pecmhf.ca.
