World Patient Safety Day, recognized annually on September 17, was established in 2019 by the World Health Organization, with the goal of promoting public awareness and understanding of patient safety, and encouraging collaboration between patients, health workers, policymakers, and healthcare leaders.
While World Patient Safety Day promotes conversations on a global scale, it’s also a great time to highlight initiatives underway right now in Nova Scotia, including the work being advanced by the One Person One Record (OPOR) Program, which will serve to enhance patient outcomes and experiences across the province – including information and processes around diagnostics.
This year’s theme is, “Improving diagnosis for patient safety,” highlighting how important timely and accurate diagnosis is in ensuring patient safety and improving health outcomes. The slogan, “Get it right, make it safe!” also resonates with the OPOR Program as patient safety is at the core of this clinical transformation.
The OPOR team has spent hundreds of hours with local subject matter experts to evaluate workflows, equipment, resources, and data, to inform the design of the new OPOR Clinical Information System (OPOR-CIS) to ensure we “get it right” and that we have a system that is optimized for care in Nova Scotia.
OPOR is supporting clinical transformation with the implementation of a provincial CIS. The system will not only bring together patient records from IWK Health and Nova Scotia Health, but will also support physicians, clinicians, and healthcare workers in making the best clinical decisions for patients.
The OPOR-CIS will transform documentation from paper to digital, with information, orders, and patient care plans entered in real-time. The system will also streamline workflows across the healthcare system, supporting compliance with evidence-based best practices and standardized guidelines, enhancing patient care and safety around the province.
The OPOR team is following the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s (HIMMS) Electronic Medical Record Adoption (EMRAM) model, which measures clinical outcomes, patient engagement, and clinician use of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) technology to strengthen organizational performance and health outcomes across patient populations.
EMRAM levels provide a detailed road map that includes seven stages of adoption throughout a digital transformation journey, such as the implementation of the OPOR-CIS.
Learn more about the OPOR-CIS implementation plan and timeline.
From new streamlined workflows to access to functionality such as Closed Loop Medication Management and Clinical Decision Support, to the integration of new clinical and non-clinical devices for easy access to information, and more, the implementation of the OPOR-CIS brings a host of benefits to both patients and providers, including:
- Improved patient safety, outcomes, and experience: Reduce errors, adverse events, and redundancies, such as duplicate testing.
- Quality and consistency, every day, everywhere: Supporting clinical standardization.
- Patient information where you need it, when you need it: Providing the real-time information healthcare providers need.
- Improved health management and continuity of care: Supporting proactive care, seamless transitions, and reliable, transparent communication with patients and their caregivers.
- Data driven decisions: Timely and reliable data to make measurable improvements to the healthcare system and patient care.
- Increased system strength and support for clinicians: Improved software and networks for a safer and sustainable system, streamlining workflows and reducing administrative burdens and delays while adhering to confidentiality and security requirements.
Overall, the OPOR-CIS implementation will bring a transformation in how we deliver care to patients across Nova Scotia, including enhancing our diagnostic processes, procedures, and communication.
As we look ahead to Go-Live Wave One with IWK Health in the summer of 2025, followed quickly by Wave Two with Nova Scotia Health Central Zone Sites, we’ll surely have even more to share and celebrate as part of next year’s World Patient Safety Day.
Learn more about the OPOR Program and the OPOR-CIS at opor.nshealth.ca