During Digital Health Week, we shine a light on our Clinical Informatics team who through the use of technology, work to improve patient care and staff efficiencies throughout the hospital.

Their work includes optimization and issues resolution for the many technology systems used throughout the hospital each day. Over the last year, they have worked to implement several new software systems in the hospital including Convey, a free, secure mobile app that takes the stress out of managing medical appointments, and in partnership with Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS), Epic, a new Hospital Information System (HIS) in Oncology.

Convey App

The Convey App was launched this past year in JBH’s Ambulatory Care and Diagnostic Imaging departments. Once an appointment is booked, patients receive a text message reminding them of their upcoming appointment. Through this app, patients are also able to use the self-service check-in feature to alert our teams of their arrival once they are at the hospital, as well as having the ability to participate in virtual appointments, when possible.

“The app allows patients to have visibility of their upcoming appointments and track them all in the app,” said Harendri, Clinical Informatics Specialist. “Being able to use the self-service check-in saves people time when they arrive for their appointment.”

Over the months-long project, the team worked on ensuring all the system features were working as intended, they also trained clinical staff on how to use the system, and worked with JBH’s Chief Privacy Officer to ensure that the app was compliant with our hospital privacy policies. Once the app was successfully launched in one department, it expanded to other Outpatient clinics and throughout the Diagnostic Imaging department.

Since the launch of the Convey App earlier in the year, almost 4,000 virtual appointments have taken place and over 1,500 on site check-ins through the app.

Epic

The Clinical Informatics team worked in partnership with HHS to implement a new Health Information System, called Epic, in our Oncology department in June 2022.

Throughout the project, the team worked to ensure that this new system was customized and would work within JBH’s system infrastructure, planned training for all JBH staff who would be using Epic, worked to deploy and test new equipment to ensure accuracy, and developed new workflows,

Epic eliminates the need for paper documentation and allows for a patient’s care team to have easy, electronic access to all of the same information, allowing for improved communication between health care providers, safe order entry, barcoded medication administration, safety checks and assistance with clinical decision making. All of these features allow for a more efficient process in the patient care journey.

“This project was a monumental initiative for us all,” said Sujata, Clinical Informatics Specialist. “It was a team effort to implement the new HIS and ensure that it would work within our systems here at JBH.”

Thank you to all members of our Clinical Informatics Team for the work you do behind the scenes to ensure out teams can provide our patients with quality, patient-centred care.