On October 13, 2018, Alberta Health Services (AHS) celebrated its one-year anniversary of signing with its clinical information system (CIS) partner, Epic Systems. What has been accomplished since is quite amazing:
- >1000 stakeholders assisted with groundwork, introducing AHS and the provincial health care system to Epic.
- > 3500 others (Subject Matter Experts, physicians, patient advisors, leaders and consultants, and developers) attended Direction Setting and Adoption & Validation sessions, working through over 2500 decisions about workflow; and configuration teams have completed 50% of the indicated builds.
- A new Connect Care oversight structure was designed and implemented, including establishing the Connect Care Council and 25 Area Councils (focused on developing provincial content, standards, measures, and improvement supports).
- Wireless deployment continues ahead of implementation waves, device selection is underway, and a new datacenter has been created.
- Clinical System Design is moving along rapidly.
- Training curricula are already taking shape, based on the emergent Connect Care CIS.
- Device interface integration and data conversion work is underway.
Most importantly, the benefits of transformation already show. The locus of decision making has shifted from local to provincial, reducing unhelpful variation. Clinical stakeholders from zones and programs already build consensus about CIS clinical and operational content, workflows, and practices.
A giant thank you to all who contribute so generously to our Connect Care; as well as those who support and enable contributors. What a year it has been – only to be topped by an even more action-packed year ahead! Hang on!