James Evans believes that health care should be the same no matter where he is in Alberta. The 48-year-old patient has a deep understanding of the impact of varied care.
Diagnosed with a life-threatening condition five years ago, Evans has required emergency care 17 times in the past year. As a result, he ensures that he is never too far from the Foothills Medical Centre, where his medical history is readily available.
"I’m reluctant to even leave the city because I know that my medical record can’t be quickly accessed if I have an emergency," says Evans. "If I don't receive the correct treatment in a timely manner, my condition can progress quickly to multi-organ failure," says Evans.
It's no wonder that he was happy to hear AHS is taking steps to improve the availability of patient information by moving forward with a provincial AHS clinical information system (CIS). In June 2016, AHS published a request for proposal to purchase the technology needed to implement such a system.
Today, independent and partial electronic health records are available in some parts of Alberta. When the AHS CIS project is complete, Alberta will have a common AHS CIS where health providers can access comprehensive and consolidated patient information — information that will travel with patients wherever they access the health system.
For Evans, whose medical records are primarily on paper with separate file set up everywhere he goes, faster and more complete access to his medical records can mean the difference between a relatively routine hospital stay, a trip to the intensive care unit, or survival.
Evans once ended up in an ambulance, being rushed to the emergency department, because there was no way to check his blood work results over the weekend. A sudden rise in hemoglobin concentration is one of the signs he’s falling ill.
Evans has a standing order with Calgary Lab Services to have a complete blood count done should he feel symptomatic, but there is no way for him to know the results of those tests quickly. “I have a great specialist who often goes out of his way to call me with results when he receives them, often when he's not even working. But this type of arrangement isn't the norm, nor is it sustainable, or reliable,” Evans said.
"I'm very happy Alberta Health Services is making these improvements. I spend a lot of time in hospitals and would be grateful for anything that makes the system more transparent and universally accessible. It will provide me with more confidence in the healthcare system and allow me a degree of ownership over my care and treatment," said Evans.
He believes that a single AHS CIS could improve his quality of life, by offering him the freedom to travel with less worry, knowing his medical records could be accessed anywhere, in case of emergency. If patients can access their results, they can make critical, informed decisions that have an impact on their immediate need for care.
A provincial AHS CIS will improve the sharing of information, giving Evans the possibility of working with leading researchers in other parts of the world. Today, this could only happen at great financial cost to him and added workload for healthcare staff.
