How will current eHealth initiatives enhance continuity of care?
Continuity of care is about a patient and provider health care experience that is coherent, connected, coordinated and consistent with patient goals.
Connect Care, community EMRs, Netcare, and the Community Information Integration(CII) and Central Patient Attachment Registry(CPAR) will build connectivity to defragment the health information space and increase access to it; bringing continuity to Albertans' experience of health care.
Connect Care will support continuity in health care across Alberta. Its integrated clinical information system (CIS) will replace most of the over 1,300 health information systems currently in place across Alberta Health Services (AHS) and affiliated organizations. When fully implemented in late 2022, the CIS will be used by all providers where AHS is accountable for the record of care.
A variety of Electronic Medical Records(EMRs) facilitate primary and specialty health care where Connect Care is not the record of care. Without ways to bridge these information spaces (CIS and EMR), continuity is broken.
One bridge is Alberta’s provincial Electronic Health Record, Netcare, which will gain a wider range of information from Connect Care. Another bridge is provided through "eDelivery" of health information from Connect Care and Netcare to Alberta EMRs, which will share more information in a more consistent format that is easier for Alberta EMRs to capture and organize.
Two new initiatives promise even better connections. AHS, the Alberta Medical Association and Alberta Health are promoting two-way health information sharing between EMRs and Netcare through CII and CPAR. These support patients to be linked to a medical home, and for that home to share information with Netcare. The CII will extend sharing to include the CIS in 2020 and CPAR will both inform and be informed by what happens where Connect Care is the record of care.
For regular updates regarding Connect Care, please visit the AHS website.
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