May 6, 2023
CALGARY – Alberta Health Services (AHS) today completed its sixth launch of Connect Care, bringing more than 23,500 additional staff and physicians at 208 AHS and AHS-partner sites onto the common provincial information system.
The initiative supports standardized care across AHS and enables all health records from AHS and its subsidiaries and partners to be accessed through one system. It also provides clinicians with common decision-making support.
Launch 6 involves sites and programs in all five AHS zones, including:
Albertans who have visited a site where Connect Care is in place can sign up to MyAHS Connect, an online patient portal where people can see their health information, test results and medications; manage appointments; and communicate securely with their AHS healthcare team.
There are now nearly 99,000 staff, physicians and other healthcare providers using Connect Care to improve care for patients in North, Edmonton, Central, Calgary and South zones. There are nine Connect Care launches, which started November 2019 and will continue to the final implementation in fall 2024. When fully in place, approximately 150,000 staff and physicians will be using Connect Care at 682 sites across Alberta.
“Expanding Connect Care is an important step in healthcare in this province and provides us with a central access point for patient information across AHS,” says Mauro Chies, AHS Interim President and CEO.
“We are approximately 18 months from the full implementation of Connect Care, which when fully in place, will enable health information to be accessible from any AHS or partner location in the province. This will give healthcare teams a more complete health history for patients, access to consistent information on best practices, and resources at their fingertips while maintaining the privacy of their information. Healthcare teams will also be able to communicate with patients and each other more easily.”
The switch over to Connect Care went as planned as teams at these sites transitioned to the new information system at 5 a.m. today.
“We had safeguards and protocols in place to protect patients during launch, ensuring the care we provide is never compromised, including our standard practice of reducing some surgical activity at our launching sites for the transition period,” says Dr. Francois Belanger, Vice President, Quality, and Chief Medical Officer at AHS. “Patients may see AHS staff taking a little extra time to complete their charting and other tasks during launch, and we appreciate the patience of the public while we undertake this important improvement.”
“We are grateful to our patients, physicians, nurses, midwives, other front-line staff, technical teams, and patient and family advisors who have been instrumental in building the system, preparing for and implementing the launch,” adds Sean Chilton, AHS Vice President, People, Health Professions and Information Technology.
Alberta Health Services is the provincial health authority responsible for planning and delivering health supports and services for more than four million adults and children living in Alberta. Our mission is to provide a patient-focused, quality health system that is accessible and sustainable for all Albertans. Our current focus is on reducing emergency department wait-times, improving EMS response times, increasing access to surgeries, and improving patient flow.
