PROGRESS ON EHEALTH RECORDS
Government celebrates ‘milestone’
The government celebrated a “milestone” for Saskatchewan’s electronic health records (EHR) Tuesday, but the years-in-the-making system isn’t finished yet.
“The work doesn’t end after today,” said Health Minister Dustin Duncan.
“It’s an important day for us to take some time to recognize and celebrate all the hard work that’s been underway over a number of years.”
The EHR allows medical professionals — doctors, nurses, pharmacists and others — to access patients’ information electronically, with the goal of eliminating mistakes, reducing duplication of tests, and saving patients the trouble of repeating their medical histories.
Tuesday marked the completion of core components’ inclusion in the EHR, as outlined by Canada Health Infoway — immunization records, diagnostic imaging and lab reports, and prescription and allergy information, among others.
eHealth Saskatchewan has spent more than $500 million since 1997, twothirds of that on operational costs like network communication lines, service desk and application support; $72 million has been spent specifically on the EHR project.
“Electronic health records is a great idea, but for more than half a billion dollars that has been spent on it so far, we are still so far away from actually having e-health records,” said NDP health critic Danielle Chartier. “What we have is repositories of data that are not connected to one another.”
EHR is being used by 3,300 health-care providers, a fraction of practitioners in the province. Physicians number around 2,200; there are more than 1,500 pharmacists and at least 10,000 registered nurses in the province.
Neither Duncan nor eHealth CEO Susan Antosh could estimate when EHR would be available in every medical facility in the province.
Dr. Didi Emokpare, a family physician in Regina, commends the EHR, which he has used for about a year.
“It’s allowed me better care, frankly,” he said. “I’m able to see multiple things from across different areas where the patients access care ... I don’t have to call health records and have stuff faxed over; it takes forever for that process to happen.”
The next stages include enhancing the amount of information that’s available on EHR, and expediting the approval process for accessing the EHR.
Making the system available to patients is also on the docket.
“There already is a large amount of information that is available. It could be available to any health-care provider who wished to access it,” said Antosh, including third-party providers and private physicians and pharmacies.
“Point-of-care” systems to access EHR are available in most larger medical facilities, said Antosh. eHealth has focused on making them more widely available in smaller ones — doctors’ offices and pharmacies, for example.
Part of facilitating EHR is encouraging physicians to use electronic medical records (EMR) instead of paper files. About 80 per cent of doctors are using EMR, said Duncan.
“An electronic medical record really helps the physician manage his workflow and his practice in his office. The electronic health record provides an access to information that comes from a wide variety of sources across the province. They’re intended to be complimentary,” said Antosh.
Using EMR is not mandatory. There is an age disparity in EMR, Antosh, Duncan and Emokpare agree: Many older doctors seem reluctant to move to an electronic system.
“AN ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORD REALLY HELPS THE PHYSICIAN MANAGE HIS WORKFLOW AND HIS PRACTICE IN HIS OFFICE.” EHEALTH CEO SUSAN ANTOSH