Connect Care Newsletter - August 24, 2018

Bringing you the latest news and updates about Connect Care every second Friday.

Connect Care is an exciting initiative that will improve the way we deliver care and the patient experience by creating a seamless health information network. To learn more, check out the Connect Care Insite page or visit www.ahs.ca/connectcare.

In this issue:

What are the benefits of Connect Care?

Readers have pointed out that while many of our updates focus on what we are doing to prepare for Connect Care, we don’t talk very much about why.

There are lots of great reasons why we are implementing Connect Care – in fact, too many to fit in a single article. In the next several issues we will look at different Connect Care benefits, starting with the most important: benefits to our patients.

Right now AHS stores our patients’ information across hundreds of independent health information systems as well as on paper. While that creates some challenges for us, it can also complicate a patient’s care journey. For example, they are often asked to repeat their health history to new providers, may have the same test performed more than once, and may find it hard to access and track their own information.

Connect Care will create a single access point to patient information within AHS and our partners, as well as more consistent practices. For patients, this will mean that their health information and care plans are available as they move from location to location and provider to provider. They will have increased confidence that care decisions are being made with the best available information.

Connect Care will also allow patients to securely access their health information online, self-schedule some appointments, receive reminders, and track their referrals. 

All of this helps put patients at the centre of their own healthcare team, where they belong.

If you want to learn more about the “Why” of Connect Care, check out our toolkit or send your questions to connectcare@ahs.ca.

Adoption/Validation 2 in review

Designing, building and implementing Connect Care is a collaborative process. It’s important to hear many diverse voices to design a system that best fits our Alberta context.

Last week nearly 1,500 participants gathered in Edmonton for the second of three sessions in Connect Care’s Adoption/Validation phase. Together, clinicians, front line and operations leaders, and patient advisors reviewed work done during the Direction Setting sessions and the first Adoption/Validation session. Participants helped adopt and validate the previous decisions about how we will enhance workflows and ultimately improved how the system will be used to support day-to-day work.

Adoption/Validation 3 will take place at the BMO Centre in Calgary, September 25 to 27, 2018.

Learning the Connect Care language

As design of the Connect Care clinical information system (CIS) progresses, we will start to use some new terminology in our discussions.

Dr. Robert Hayward has developed the Connect Care eHealth Glossary, which contains terminology used in the healthcare industry and in CIS software. In a recent post on his Bytes Blog he discussed how the glossary can help clinicians familiarize themselves with terms such as SmartPhrases, SmartLists and more.

Read the Clinical Improvements Bytes Blog to learn more about the Connect Care eHealth Glossary and to learn the Connect Care language.

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