Alberta expands Epic EHR across the province

CALGARY – Alberta Health Services (AHS) has completed the ninth and final launch of Connect Care, bringing more than 11,000 additional staff and physicians at 155 AHS and AHS-partner sites and locations, onto its Epic Systems provincial information network.

AHS has led the way in Canada with Connect Care as the only health authority in the country with a provincewide clinical information system, the organization said.

In addition to this, AHS has the lowest cost per user to operate the system when compared to other clients of the software vendor, Epic Systems, who are of a similar scale to AHS.

Connect Care gives healthcare providers more tools to support their patients at almost half the cost per user of the systems AHS had previously in place. It also supports the desire of Albertans to have access to their health information.

With Launch 9, Connect Care is in place across all AHS and AHS partner programs, services and sites in Alberta. This launch includes:

• Community Care and Home Care programs and services in Edmonton, North, Calgary, Central and South zones.
• Population Public Health sites across Calgary, Edmonton, Central and North zones.
• Health Link’s 13 provincial programs.
• Community ambulatory clinics in North, Edmonton, Calgary and South zones, and Bone and Joint clinics in Calgary, Central and Edmonton zones.
• Recovery Alberta’s 10 Correctional Health Services facilities across all five zones.
• 12 CapitalCare facilities and five Covenant Health sites in the Edmonton Zone.

The initiative supports best practices across AHS, and enables health records from AHS, and its subsidiaries and partners to be accessed through one system.

It also provides clinicians with common decision-making support. Through Alberta’s MyHealth Records, Albertans have access to MyAHS Connect, an online patient portal where people can see their health information, test results and medications; manage appointments; and communicate securely with their AHS healthcare team.

With Launch 9, there are now more than 125,000 staff, physicians and other healthcare providers using Connect Care to improve care for patients, in more than 1,000 sites and programs across all five AHS zones.

“Today marks an impressive milestone for AHS,” said AHS president and CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos (pictured).

“Health information across all AHS programs and services and with our partners is now integrated, so front-line healthcare workers, physicians and patients have shared information that gives the whole healthcare team a more complete health history for patients, access to consistent information on best practices and resources at their fingertips, while improving our ability to keep information private and secure.”

“This launch marks the ninth rollout of Connect Care over five years. It has been an incredible effort that helps AHS physicians and other healthcare providers do their best possible work.

By having a common clinical information system, care teams across AHS and our partners have access to a patient’s complex histories and medication lists, with information that travels with the patient wherever Connect Care is in place,” said Dr. Peter Jamieson, vice president, quality, and chief medical officer. “It has improved how we care for patients and clients across the province.”

All launches to date have included plans to ensure care is not compromised during the transition. Patients may see care teams taking a little extra time to complete their charting and other tasks during launch as they adjust to these improvements.

“The scale of Connect Care makes it one of the largest clinical system implementations in the world,” added Sean Chilton, AHS interim vice president and chief operating officer, Clinical Operations and EMS.

“Right from the onset of planning over a decade ago, patients, physicians, nurses, midwives, other front-line staff, technical teams, and patient and family advisors have been instrumental in designing the clinical information system for Connect Care. We could not have gotten to this final launch without their support and input every step of the way.”

Alberta Health Services is the provincial health authority responsible for planning and delivering health supports and services for more than four million adults and children living in Alberta. Its mission is to provide a patient-focused, quality health system that is accessible and sustainable for all Albertans. The current focus is on reducing emergency department wait times, improving EMS response times, increasing access to surgeries, and improving patient flow.