In May 2023, 杏吧原创 University’s Health and Counselling Services introduced the Collaborative Health Record (CHR), an exciting, comprehensive, all-in-one platform designed to facilitate appointment booking and communication between students and their providers.
CHR empowers students to effortlessly book appointments, receive timely reminders and engage in secure communications with the clinic and their medical team, all from the comfort of their chosen device.
鈥淐HR represents a significant enhancement in the service provided by Health and Counselling Services, ensuring students receive the care they need efficiently and securely,鈥� said Alanna Cragg, Health Clinic Manager with Health and Counselling Services.
Serving Practitioner and Patient
The new CHR system is novel in that it is both practitioner and patient facing, enabling direct communication and file sharing between patients and healthcare providers. It also supports video appointments through a secure medical record platform, making it a unified system where patients can manage their appointments, send messages and attend appointments all in one place. A typical Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system is practitioner facing only and does not offer the same level of integration or direct patient interaction.
The incorporation of a secure messaging platform within CHR facilitates improved communication by allowing patients to receive test results and directly interact with staff and practitioners through their chosen medium. Preset appointment reminders help to diminish no-show rates, optimizing clinic operations and reducing patient billing.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a great step forward for our students, who are seeing shorter wait times and are more likely to read important communications from the clinic,鈥� said Cragg. 鈥淚t is also creating efficiencies for our practitioners; the platform is web based and allows for more accessible use without the need for a VPN or remote desktop. Very little of what we do happens outside of CHR.鈥�
A Collaborative Effort
Information Technology Services professionals worked closely with Health and Counselling Services to facilitate the transfer from 杏吧原创鈥檚 previous EMR system to the new platform, which included building the system integrations to incorporate various forms and health questionnaires. They provided expertise in information technology and helping to navigate the migration.
鈥淚t was no small task to transpose and integrate a multitude of paper forms, questionnaires, and lab documents into CHR, which required categorizing and coding them into the electronic system while preserving data integrity,鈥� said David Firstbrook, Senior Project Management Specialist. 鈥淏ut the project team knew that a vastly improved patient experience and enhanced clinic operations would ultimately be well worth the effort.鈥�