But that’s no longer the case in the Orangeville area, where all but one member of the 25- member Dufferin Area Family Health Team has electronic records.
Typically, paper records, outlining your health history, will stay in a file folder at your doctor’s office, where they are inaccessible to any other medical professional who might be in need of the information contained in your file.
The provincial agency eHealth, Ontario’s eHealth Strategy, was given a mandate to take the lead in innovating and improving patient care through the use of information technology. It was created in September 2008 and given the responsibility for developing a single provincial eHealth strategy which will align all publicly funded eHealth initiatives through a single point of accountability.
After an assessment of Ontario’s eHealth environment the ‘eHealth Strategy 2009- 2012’ was developed. According to eHealth Ontario, the vision of the agency is: Achieving excellence in health care by harnessing the power of information. Within the priorities of this strategy are specific actions and performance targets that will be attained and measurable results realized by 2012.
The cost of this strategy is expected to be $2.133 billion between 2009 and 2012.
The Dufferin Area Family Health Team (DAFHT) is using the eHealth strategy and its group of physicians and interdisciplinary healthcare providers to provide highestquality care for patients.
DAFHT has four locations, three in Orangeville and one in Grand Valley. The team consists of 25 physicians, 24 of whom now use Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Clinical Management Systems (CMS), as well as one clinical pharmacist, two registered dietitians, one health promoter, seven mental health therapists, four nurse educators, three nurse practitioners, one physician assistant, one respiratory therapist and one diabetes educator. Together, they provide comprehensive care to their enrolled patients with the aid of EHR and CMS.
One of the DAFHT locations in Orangeville, Highland Health Clinic, has been open since 2004 and is completely electronic.
According to Lynn Lowe, Clinic Manager, they didn’t have to convert paper charts to online but they did have to learn how to use the software.
“All of the doctors are happy to be using EMR (Electronic Medical Records); it does make their lives easier. It’s great to have all the information in a concise format, a readable format, and it allows doctors access to the files when they need them,” she said.
She commented that it is quite convenient for doctors who do go everywhere and they can access the patients’ charts anywhere.
The doctors “are able to remote in” to a patient’s file, “going through secure firewalls into our desktop here,” said Ms. Lowe. “The ministry is very strict on what we can allocate to the Internet, so the companies that do offer that have firewall after firewall and encryptions, and it is quite difficult to access the information, so it is quite safe. They sell it as quite safe, and it is all part of the eHealth Strategy and OntarioMD all together and making it safer.”
Some of the common features and advantages offered by CMS are the clinical components: electronic charting, cumulative patient profile, a lab results interface, graphing and research.
The practice management components involved are patient registration, billing, scheduling, word-processing and recalls.
Faster access to sharing of patient information, diagnostic prescribing capabilities, legible and organized chart information and support for preventative care management are features that can improve patient care.
CMS and EMR in clinics will eventually improve access to clinics and cut down on wait time to see physicians.
“I don’t think (full integration) will be soon, only because there are so many kinds of EMR, different software companies, that I find it will be hard to integrate them all into one system,” said Ms. Lowe. “It is an IT nightmare but I know they are working on it and we are looking forward to it.”
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Lindsey Papp
Quelle/Source: Orangeville Citizen, 18.11.2010
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