When Lakeridge Health Critical Care physician and Anaesthesiologist Dr. John Maybee realized his patient needed urgent, additional care at Scarborough Health Network (SHN), instead of reaching for a paper chart to send with the patient, he logged in to the Epic clinical information system.
Lakeridge Health and SHN are among seven partner hospital organizations that introduced Epic on December 3, providing patients across the Central East Region of Ontario with a single, unified digital health record.
“Epic has ushered in a new era for the way care is delivered and experiences like the transfer of this patient are evidence of this tremendous change,” says Dr. Maybee. “This patient required transport via our partners at Ornge Transport Medicine and his medical history, test results, and medication records were easily accessible in real time to both the transport team and team waiting for him at SHN.”
Dr. Randy Wax, Lakeridge Health Critical Care and Ornge Transport Medicine physician, who accompanied the patient with paramedics in the critical care transport ambulance that day, has also witnessed the many benefits of Epic since the system went live.
“Epic has provided health-care teams with standardized tools and processes that allow them to better collaborate and make the best possible decisions about an individual’s treatment,” Dr. Wax shares.
Dr. Martin Betts, Chief of Critical Care at SHN, adds that “thanks to Epic, our team was able to review all the patient’s information while she was en route to SHN. From her medical records, such as key clinical data and health history, we had all the necessary information to provide her the highest quality of care as soon as the transport team arrived.”
Dr. Wax also notes that the data collected in Epic provides an important opportunity for research to improve patient safety and quality of care. He and other members of the Lakeridge Health team were recently awarded a $17,500 grant from the Healthcare Insurance Reciprocal of Canada (HIROC) to analyze how Epic can use an automated warning system to help detect deterioration in hospital patients earlier to reduce their risk of negative outcomes.
“Our goal with this study – as with everything associated with Epic – is to use this powerful tool to help our teams deliver the very safest and most seamless care experience to all our patients,” says Dr. Wax.
