Canadian pediatric hospital network improves patient care with an integrated electronic health record system

Patient information within the St. Justine Hospital network was not integrated, nor was there any way to share that information electronically. As a result, information about patient problems and treatments -- including drugs prescribed -- was often not readily. St. Justine needed to integrate patient data to accelerate diagnoses, enable treatments to begin more quickly, and reduce the errors that could result from a lack of an integrated electronic patient record management system.

St. Justine Hospital engaged IBM to design, build, and deploy a prototype Electronic Health Record (EHR), based on IBM's Health Network Solution (HNS). A “medical entities” dictionary translates data into standard terminology and data values for storage in the HNS repository. Administrative and clinical data about a patient can then be shared among the three hospitals using a Web-based interface; parts of the record can be restricted or made available based upon a user's authorizations.

With the deployment of EHR, St. Justine Hospitals have improved diagnostics through information sharing. This has greatly helped to improve patient treatment, and reduce hospital stays. With the elimination of testing duplication, St. Justine expects to reduce costs for laboratory and radiology tests by about 15%.

“Because of this project, the hospital has won an award of excellence from the Québec Hospitals Association for improving the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of health care facilities through the innovative use of IT resources.” Richard L'Abbé, Director, Administration