Fraser Health goes live with MEDITECH Expanse

PORT MOODY, BC – As a step toward innovating the future of care, Eagle Ridge Hospital became the first of Fraser Health Authority’s 12 hospitals to go LIVE with MEDITECH Expanse on April 15. The implementation of Expanse is part of the Advance Program at Fraser, a clinical transformation that is taking place across the organization.

The program focuses on leveraging technology and innovation to continuously improve the quality, consistency, and safety of the patient care provided.

In a recent video, the team at Fraser Health explained the goals of their Advance program and the role Expanse plays in achieving those goals.

“At the heart of Advance is the replacement of our current clinical information system with MEDITECH Expanse,” said Laurie Leith (pictured), Fraser’s vice president of Regional Hospitals and Health Services.

“Advance also includes other projects that support a fully digital health record,” Leith added, “such as our front-end speech recognition system, our automated dispensing cabinets and our roaming desktops.”

Dr. Ralph Belle, VP of Medicine at Fraser Health, commented: “All healthcare systems are changing to an electronic medical record. Advance is not a change for the sake of change. This is a change that will result in safer, higher quality care with fewer errors. We do have to move forward with this.”

Victoria Lee, CEO and president of Fraser Health, said: “Digital transformation is foundational to providing better health and best-in-health care.”

Fraser Health Authority is responsible for delivering hospital and community-based health services to over 1.9 million people and is the largest of the five regional health authorities in British Columbia, Canada. Eagle Ridge Hospital provides acute care and specialty services, including 24/7 emergency, general medicine, rehab, and surgery.

“As the first site to go live, Eagle Ridge Hospital has paved the way by being at the front end of the design of our system. I want to thank all the staff and physicians for putting in the time and effort to make our project as successful as it can be,” said Leith.