Contributed by Kathy Tudor, Director, Communications and Marketing, OntarioMD
I have a passion for all things digital. I used to love sticky notes, now I use the notes and calendar tools on my smartphone for things like my shopping list and appointment reminders. I choose from an array of mobile apps to see and talk to my daughter in Ottawa. I track my steps using a mobile app. I don’t need paper maps and printed directions anymore. Google Maps gets me to where I want to go. Any digital tool that eliminates paper or stores PDFs of my documents, count me in. I received a Google Home for Mother’s Day. It’s still in the box, but I can’t wait to set it up and start asking it questions.
My family doctor records my visits and keeps track of everything affecting my health with an EMR. When I was treated for breast cancer, I jumped on the MyUHN Patient Portal to make sure my Princess Margaret Cancer Centre reports were getting to my family doctor through OntarioMD’s Health Report Manager (HRM). Full disclosure – I’ve been working in digital health for 16 years, helping to communicate its benefits. So I thought I knew what living in a digital world meant and thought all my digital tools were really cool – until I visited Humber River Hospital.
I attended the Breakfast with the Chiefs talk at Humber River Hospital on May 7 to listen to CEO Barb Collins talk about Healthcare’s Digital Future. I really wanted to know whether being a fully digital hospital meant providing impersonal patient care and promoting this type of care in the new world of Ontario Health Teams (OHTs). I also really wanted to go on a tour of the hospital to see if all the hype was justified. Before I even arrived at the session, I had to walk through the hospital past a life-like robot (the one pictured above). That was my first clue that this hospital was true to its digital moniker.
Collins outlined how Humber River solved the challenge of delivering enhanced care in a larger facility with more beds and increasing patient visits with the same operating budget, while creating staff engagement and high patient satisfaction. A tall order. More so when you think of how patients are more connected than ever before to knowledge and information.
I could say a lot about what impressed me about Humber River, but I’ll break it down into four buckets:
Digital information
Humber River makes patient information readily available by many people simultaneously contributing to collaboration and sharing of knowledge. Information is actionable, contributing to workflow automation and better decision-making. All systems are IP-based: charting, biomed, diagnostics, robotics, building, etc.
Mobile and connected
The staff at Humber River can access and create relevant information anytime, anywhere! They communicate and collaborate with others instantly and conveniently to deliver care and keep patients safe. The systems used connect with people to drive performance, quality and safety. No fax machines to see here! Instead, what I saw was a Command Centre that reminded me of NASA, only smaller. All systems must be operational 100% of the time and work together to exchange information. At a glance, staff could see which beds were available, where staff were and much more.
Patient empowerment
Patients were just as connected as staff in the hospital. The rooms are amazing. They are all private to prevent the spread of infection. Patients can control the temperature, the tint of the windows and more, with a touch of a screen. Visitors are able to come at any time and always know where their loved one is. Collins said patient satisfaction is at 89%, higher than the national average.
System automation
I wished I could see all areas of the hospital, but there was only time to see a few things. My tour of the hospital took me to the pharmacy. Medications were dispensed by machine, almost completely eliminating the chance of error (it’s only 0.007%). There are bar codes on everything. I was hoping to see more robots in the meds area. Humans were placing and verifying orders. The robots were delivering the meds to decrease wait times.
At the end of the tour, I was humbled. The hospital has thought of everything – even the number of steps the staff take every day, with the hospital and flow of care designed to reduce what they called “sneaker time.” Bringing it all back to my world, I’m glad Humber River uses HRM to move information around part of our health care system. How could they not?
What’s all this wonderful digital connectedness going to mean for OHTs? Humber River could be a team by itself and has become the hub of a large, diverse community. The hospital has plans for community reach and reduced acute utilization that include supporting health and wellness, virtual visits, home monitoring, communication and collaboration.
HRM has become an indispensable tool that the OHTs may adopt. It has an important role to play in communication and collaboration. OntarioMD is planning to make HRM handle bi-directional communication – not only delivering information from the hospital to primary care EMRs, but from EMRs to the hospital. New groups outside the hospital who aren’t digitally savvy or don’t have much access to digital tools now will need to use HRM, and be trained on it, as they find themselves in OHTs. Patients also need and want to see more of their information, whether they’re in an OHT or not. That includes their hospital reports, and HRM will be able to do that too in the future. HRM, the “little engine that could”, is about to get a whole lot cooler in an increasingly digital world.