When Cowichan District Hospital (CDH) staff go live with electronic ordering on Saturday, May 3, it will mark the first community hospital in Island Health to make the full transition to advanced use of the electronic health record (EHR).
Staff and medical staff at CDH have been preparing for months for the change to computerized provider order entry (CPOE), and elements of the closed loop medication system including administering medications safely through the use of bar coding and electronic medication administration records. Staff are also adopting CareAware Capacity Management (CCM), the electronic system for managing patient and equipment flow that works with other Cerner applications as part of the EHR.
“This is a monumental change for our team at CDH, who have worked incredibly hard on education and training to prepare,” said David Huntley, director of CDH clinical service delivery. “All the way through, they have stayed focused on how this will benefit our patients, making a positive impact on the quality, safety and consistency of care.”
Part and parcel of that commitment has been the recent adoption of care planning practices – with impressive results even before the site goes live.
“It's exciting to see the staff embrace the care planning that includes admission and discharge, pre-hospital functional screening and CAM screening for delirium care,” said Emma James, executive director for clinical service delivery in the Cowichan Valley. “Adopting these practices prior to Go-Live will set us up for success once we transition to CPOE and begin using the electronic tools that help us deliver the best care for our patients.”
CDH will be supported by many Island Health staff coming from sites that have already made the transition to CPOE – including Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, Royal Jubilee Hospital and Victoria General Hospital. When staff at CDH get the green light early Saturday morning to begin using the new electronic workflows, they will have the extra confidence boost of ‘at-the-elbow’ support from many colleagues with deep knowledge and experience with the EHR.
“We are so grateful for the support from our colleagues from other sites, among them 28 medical residents from UVic and UBC who will be here to support us,” said Dr. Graham Blackburn, CDH medical director and chief of staff. “I am very grateful to our local physicians who have engaged with training to an exceptional degree in preparation for this change. We have significant support from physicians at other sites, as well as specialty medical residents joining us from Victoria and Vancouver. Our local legend, Dr Willie Pewarchuk, has been guiding us steadily along the path to CPOE go-live.”
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