Electronic health record system costly, but vital
Merging multiple systems into one by 2017 called ‘massive undertaking’
An electronic health record that connects emergency room physicians with family doctors and Netcare’s lab results will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but is “critical” to the health of Albertans, says the deputy health minister.
Carl Amrhein said Wednesday his department is working with Alberta Health Services on a proposal to roll out a single health informa- tion system starting in 2017 with the areas of Edmonton, Calgary and Red Deer.
The system will link Alberta’s 97 hospitals with primary care networks of family physicians, as well as the province’s Netcare system so medical specialists or emergency rooms can find out what medications a person is taking or what diagnostic tests they’ve had.
As of 2014, even though the Alberta government had spent more than $300 million on electronic health records — more than $800 million if Netcare is included — doctors across the province used at least 12 medical record systems that couldn’t communicate with each other. Staff in hospitals had no access. Another 20 per cent of doctors didn’t have electronic health records, the auditor general discovered.
“The emergence of an integrated health record system over the next few years will allow much more easy and useful coupling of the massive amounts of information in the primary care system with the acute-care system and the other systems that support those pieces,” Amrhein said. Health professionals such as pharmacists, optometrists, chiropractors and dentists are working with the ministry and health authority to see if they can also use such a system while still protecting patient privacy and confidentiality.
“This is a massive undertaking,” Amrhein told the public accounts committee Wednesday. “It’s going to be a few years ...”
But “the magic” of such as system would mean an estimated 20 per cent of repeat X-rays, blood tests or other diagnostic studies would not need to be done, he said, because an emergency physician could see previous results in Netcare.
“I’d say it’s critical,” Amrhein said of moving forward.
In the meantime, Albertans will get access this spring to more personal medication information at the myhealth.alberta.ca website, now being tested by 100 healthcare professionals in AHS.
Albertans will be able to log in to a personal site, record their health information and also peer into their diagnostic tests on Netcare, currently only open to physicians.