Trent Hills Independent article published on Apr. 5, 2016.
Article in full pasted below. Sue Dickens, Trent Hills Independent
Campbellford – Campbellford Memorial Hospital could become a regional electronic health records (EHR) hub. That is the vision of President and CEO Brad Hilker, who updated hospital board officials at their last meeting on the progress being made in this area.
Providing a context for this plan, he talked about the Geriatric Assessment and Intervention Network (GAIN) clinic located across the street, where the Trent Hills Family Health Team is situated in the Campbellford Memorial Health Centre at 119 Isabella St. The clinic opened June 2015.
The GAIN clinics are established in each of the four largest hospitals in the Central East Local Health Integration Network (CE-LHIN), the closest being at the Peterborough Regional Health Centre. The clinics also include eight community-based teams such as the one in Trent Hills.
The GAIN teams serve seniors, typically aged 75 plus, living at home or in retirement residences, who are frail and require comprehensive assessment.
“Our GAIN team has worked very closely with our IT vendor to build customized screens that facilitate the documentation of the comprehensive geriatric assessment,” Hilker told the board.
“The consulting geriatricians have praised the completeness and accuracy of the documentation and assessment record, and our team finds the system easy to use,” he added. The system has been designed to easily track indicators for monthly reporting.
“Based on our success, the Seniors Care Network is exploring the use of our system as a regional documentation system for the other GAIN teams,” Hilker explained.
This puts the system front and centre, in terms of it becoming the regional EHR hub for the GAIN program “to assist the Seniors Care Network to a common software solution utilizing our existing relationship with our vendor.”
Hilker noted, “Further details will come, as we explore this opportunity.”
The Seniors Care Network is “a group of dedicated health professionals, who share expertise and hard work, to provide the best healthcare experience for frail older adults in the CE-LHIN.”
It covers an area of 17,000 square kilometres of mostly rural geography.
The Network’s statistics indicate that 15 per cent of the CE-LHIN’s 1.6 million residents are seniors, “who may require additional support to remain living at home.”
The LHIN’s population of frail older adults is estimated to grow by 27 per cent in the next decade and double in the next 20 years.
All of this is happening while the province’s eHealth blueprint is being used as a framework for EHR planning and delivery.
Click here to access the article on Trent Hills Independent website.