Dr. Peter Rossos, UHN's Chief Medical Information Officer and a gastroenterologist at Toronto General Hospital, says ConnectingGTA help clinicians "make better decisions and facilitates better follow-ups." (Photo: Photographics UHN)
Dr. Peter Rossos understands the frustrations of being both a patient and a clinician.
"I've spent days as a patient waiting to hear from my own physician and, as a clinician, putting together piecemeal information before I can develop a treatment plan for my patients," says Dr. Rossos, UHN's Chief Medical Information Officer and a gastroenterologist at Toronto General Hospital.
"Clinician time should be spent providing care to patients, not playing a detective."
These frustrations are commonplace across all care settings.
Patients in central Ontario visit multiple healthcare organizations to receive care. Unfortunately, essential information does not always travel with them or is not readily available at the point of care.
Available to clinicians from 40 organizations
When information is available, it may be fragmented, dispersed in paper or across multiple electronic systems. Each electronic system may require a separate username and password to access.
But ConnectingGTA, which launches today, addresses these challenges. Led by University Health Network and funded by eHealth Ontario and Canada Health Infoway, ConnectingGTA provides seamless and secure access to acute and community care data. This will improve the timelessness of care decisions, reduce duplicate tests and procedures to better support care transition points.
Clinicians from 40 organizations across six Local Health Integration Networks, will be able to use ConnectingGTA.
The records are organized into six different portlets, or patient information buckets, in the application.
"ConnectingGTA allows us to make better decisions and facilitates better follow-ups," says Dr. Rossos. "Through the portlets, I have access to all kinds of patient information in one location."
The six portlets are:
- Visits / Encounters and Summary Reports
- Transcribed reports, discharge summaries and consultations
- Documentation/Notes
- All non-diagnostic reports, consult notes and history
- Diagnostic Imaging Reports
- Ultrasound, X-Ray, MRI Scan, CT scan reports, etc.
- Other Results
- Cardiology notes, cardiovascular reports, neurophysiology reports, respiratory, etc.
- Community
- Community Care Access Centre referral information
- Lab and Pathology Results
- Chemistry, hematology, pathology, microbiology and other results available from the Ontario Lab Information System (OLIS)
ConnectingGTA is available to all clinicians and administrative personnel who provide or assist, in the care of UHN patients. It is launched through the "Regional EHR" tab in the patient's EPR chart.
UHN, through SIMS, played an important role in developing ConnectingGTA. UHN was responsible for working with clinicians, from a variety of healthcare organizations, to develop the application. Coupled with SIMS' change management, project management and technical subject matter expertise, ConnectingGTA is made possible through active collaboration.
