Connect Care Newsletter - June 1, 2018

Twice a month, we bring you the latest news, updates and need-to-know information related to Connect Care. Bringing together fragmented health information systems into one seamless clinical information system for Alberta, Connect Care will improve the way we deliver care and improve patient experience. Want to learn more? Visit www.ahs.ca/connectcare.

Here’s what you’ll find in this latest Connect Care Newsletter:

Getting to know you and your role

The people who work for Alberta Health Services (AHS) come from many different disciplines. Before Connect Care training can be developed, we need to understand the various roles AHS staff and partners fill. Training and support must be tailored to meet the needs of physicians and also staff in clinical, clinical support and non-clinical roles.

To prepare, we have started identifying roles across different care settings. To better understand how roles vary across care settings throughout the province, we will work with program or service leaders to do some job shadowing. Our Connect Care Clinical Operations team will soon reach out to various leaders of programs and services across the province to request job shadowing opportunities.

Want to learn more? Contact us at connectcare@ahs.ca.

Connecting community physicians

The project team is frequently asked “how can community physicians benefit from Connect Care?”

While the full Connect Care clinical information system (CIS) will serve everywhere that AHS maintains the record of care (all AHS areas of service, partners such as Carewest, Capital Care, Covenant Health and Calgary Lab Services, etc., and many community practices), physicians running independent electronic medical records (EMRs) will have a number of options for sharing health information with Connect Care.

Dr. Wes Jackson recently wrote a thoughtful and informative article in the Alberta Medical Association Doctors’ Digest discussing how physicians with private EMRs can still benefit from Connect Care. As Dr. Jackson observes, being able to access all AHS information via the Connect Care Provider Portal will simplify the work of following and understanding their patients' AHS experience.

Sharing Connect Care news across AHS

As Connect Care moves forward, the Communications teams are increasing their focus on face-to-face engagement, both digitally and in-person, across AHS. This includes planning for quarterly Telehealth Town Halls where staff and physicians can ask questions directly to Connect Care leaders.

Work is also underway to connect more with sites, providing resources such as a manager’s toolkit, which is now in development. The toolkit will provide details about what’s happening with Connect Care for managers to use in team discussions.

In addition to regular updates in the Connect Care newsletter, staff Physicians are being kept up to speed on Connect Care activities through stories in physician blogs, vlogs, newsletters, handbooks, Doc of the Week and other physician-focused online services accessible via ahs.ca/connectcare.

Stay tuned to ahs.ca/connectcare, Insite and future issues of the Connect Care Newsletter for information as it develops.

External: https://ahs.ca/connectcare
Insite: https://insite.ahs.ca/connectcare
Feedback: connectcare@ahs.ca