Edmonton zone has new system for public health

EDMONTON – Since its launch last December, the Provincial Public and Allied Health Replacement – Edmonton Zone Project has converted more than 1.3 million patient records and 11 million immunizations records into electronic files for the Edmonton Zone. The project also increases patient safety, decreases work duplication in data entry, improves health information security and provides accurate and timely reporting.

The project – designed to replace the outdated Caseworks system for Public Health and Community Allied Health Services in the zone with a provincial Meditech system for public health – traces its origins back four years when several groups from multiple disciplines came together to plan the best strategy.

“This is one of the first times we had so many groups coming together. Learning how to partner and work together was tough in the beginning, but once we truly learned how to work together, we worked really well,” says Christopher Schwarz (pictured on left), clinical services IT project director.

While effective workflow processes proved a challenge due to the complexity – some decisions and reports took additional time to complete – the team soldiered on, past the roadblocks, thanks to its talented members.

“We were able to hone on the individual skill sets of team members. Being able to identify those was really helpful so we could get through those roadblocks,” says Chrystal Ference (pictured on right), director public health programs. “If I could sum up what helped us be successful, it was teamwork.”

On June 5, the excellence of the project was recognized with an award – the 2018 Information Management & Technology Project of the Year – by the Project Management Institute Northern Alberta Chapter (PMINAC).

At the presentation ceremony, the project also garnered the 2018 PMINAC Overall Project of the Year Award, a welcome surprise for the team.

“We’ve done other big projects and we always came up as the runner-up,” says Schwarz. “This is the first time, as a team, that we actually won – and it feels really good.”

The next and final phase of this provincial effort will see Calgary Zone Public & Oral Health and CDC go live later this year – which will unify all five AHS zones’ public health operations on a single Meditech system.