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spring 2007 |
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h
e a l t h t e c h n o l o g y
Update on two
provincial EHR projects
The Newfoundland and
Labrador Centre for Health Information (NLCHI) was established to
provide quality information to health professionals, the public, and
health system decision-makers.
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Submitted Article |
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The Newfoundland
and Labrador Centre for Health Information (NLCHI) was
established to provide quality information to health professionals,
the public, and health system decision-makers. NLCHI’s mandate also
includes the development of a confidential and secure Health
Information Network (HIN) that will serve as the infrastructure for
the provincial Electronic Health Record (EHR).
There are five key information systems
that are the core of the EHR: the client registry, the diagnostic
imaging system, the drug information system, the laboratory information
system and the shared health record. The Centre is also active in other
projects that add value to the Newfoundland and Labrador EHR. These are
the Electronic Medical Record project and the telehealth project.
Diagnostic Imaging/Picture Archiving
and Communications System (DIPACS)
Since December 2006, the Eastern Health
Authority, including the city hospitals and the former Avalon Health
Region, and the Western Health Authority, has gone live on the
provincial archive. The former Peninsulas Region will go live on the
provincial archive at the end of March. These regions now have the
ability to share DIPACS information, and the Central Health Authority
will be added as they further implement the components associated with
the provincial system. Gander will be going live in mid-April and Grand
Falls-Windsor anticipates going live this summer. Labrador-Grenfell
Health is implementing the GE PACS system and will be going live at the
Happy Valley-Goose Bay site on March 13th.
The regional health authorities, through
their respective diagnostic imaging and information management and
technology directors, have reviewed a number of draft documents that
will support the operations and management of DIPACS. These documents
address the arrangements to support services that will be required. This
includes a service level agreement that specifically addresses Eastern
Health’s role as the lead region in offering support in accordance with
ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) standards
(international standards for support service functions such as help
desk, service continuity, availability management, and security
management, among others). Other recently reviewed documents are the
Memorandum of Understanding and the Regional Roles and Responsibilities
for DIPACS. It is anticipated these documents will be finalized in April
2007.
Newfoundland and Labrador Pharmacy
Network
The Newfoundland and Labrador Pharmacy
Network is the provincial drug information system currently under
development that will offer province-wide on-line, real-time medication
profiles, as well as comprehensive drug information in an interactive
database to assist physicians, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and
nurse practitioners in providing a higher quality of patient care. The
vision of the pharmacy network is to seamlessly link physicians and
other authorized health professionals; to enable electronic exchange of
medication information; and, to establish a comprehensive patient
medication profile. The centre anticipates the first prescription will
be entered in the pharmacy network by mid-2008.
The project has a clinical advisory group,
which include four physicians, to advise the designers of the software
and user interfaces on current practices. There is also a policy
advisory committee that will advise the project on strategic direction
and policy recommendations.
During the first phase of the project, the
centre will be deploying a care provider portal that will allow
physicians to look-up medication profiles over a secure internet
connection. This will be available to hospital emergency departments and
early adopter physician offices in 2008. Release 2 of the care provider
portal (mid to late 2008) will allow for ePrescribing functionality
where prescriptions will be entered into the pharmacy network at the
point of care. The third phase of the project (mid 2011) will fully
enable interactive functionality for physicians through their office
EMRs, further enhancing the e-prescribing functionality. Physicians will
still be able to use the care provider portal if they do not have an EMR
in their office.
For more information on the pharmacy
network visit the
centre’s web site, email Juan
Edwards or phone 709-757-2459.
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