PEI plans to make health data available to patients

CHARLOTTETOWN – The P.E.I. government says all Islanders could have access to their medical records online by the end of this year or early in 2025. The provincewide patient portal is partially outlined in a digital health strategy for 2024-29 that was released in mid-July by Health P.E.I. and the Department of Health and Wellness.

PEI follows Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, which this year launched patient platforms – with access through smartphones – that provide patients with access to their medical data.

PEI’s strategy outlines how the province plans to incorporate emerging technology in the sector. The province originally announced a year ago that health records would be accessible to patients within a few months.

It now looks like it will come in late 2024 or early 2025, said Laurae Kloschinsky (pictured), assistant deputy minister with the Department of Health and Wellness.

“One of the things we’re really looking at is we want to create access that’s meaningful, consistent and appropriate,” Kloschinsky told CBC News. “So we are working on the MyPEI portal, which we describe as the one-stop digital front door to government services.”

The digital health document doesn’t provide any timelines or tangible goals for how the strategy will work. But that was intentional, she added.

The development of the digital health strategy was guided by nine core principles, says Health P.E.I. (Health P.E.I.)

“There isn’t necessarily a five-year plan because in those goals it could be multiple projects within it. Some may occur earlier on in strategy and some may occur [later],” she said.

Health P.E.I. says it consulted with the public, healthcare providers, community partners, provincial information technology staff, Access P.E.I., other provincial health departments, and consultants over the past year to develop the strategy.

Health P.E.I. said last year that the move to the provincewide electronic medical records system had gone remarkably well. The system allows physicians to share information like prescription records and patient history, plus sends out automated appointment reminders and pre-visit questionnaires.

Kloschinsky said the province wanted to ensure all parts of the system could communicate effectively before rolling out the patient portal, and that’s taken longer than expected to implement.

Islanders could use the portal to access everything from their pharmacy prescription information and health records to physiotherapy appointments and referrals to specialists.

Kloschinsky said more than 95 clinics, 200 primary care providers, and over 1,000 Islanders use some parts of the electronic health records system, including features like automatic appointment reminders.

She said even more features of the electronic medical records system will be available later in 2025.

“People are going to be able to upload their information from their Fitbits, and from their Apple Watches. They’re going to be able to input their own blood glucose,” Kloschinsky said.

Eventually, people will be able to act as proxy care providers to access the information of a patient they’re caring for, such as an aging parent.

But the most important thing, Kloschinsky said, is that all the systems are talking to one another.

“As the technology improves, many doctors around the world are already using artificial intelligence in their day-to-day duties. But before it’s implemented on a wider scale in P.E.I., the public needs to be aware of how it’s going to be used.”

“People need to understand what is artificial intelligence and how is my information going to be used?” she added. “And, more importantly, how is it going to be shared and accessed, and what control do I have?”

Health P.E.I. has consulted with other provinces about how they use AI and what it’s done to improve their systems. “At the outset, the goal is can we reduce administrative burden in patient documentation,” she said.

That means co-ordinating and scheduling appointments, and doing charting and coding on the doctors’ behalf – essentially, AI will be helping with paperwork.

Medical transcription services could eventually be introduced into appointments, but patients have to be comfortable with it first, Kloschinsky said.

Eventually, AI could even do diagnoses.

“In other jurisdictions, they have used it to do care scenarios, including reading of images and then making the most probable diagnosis based on the scans and intelligence,” Kloschinsky said. “But all of that is a long way down the road.”