Children’s hospital embraces paperless operations

The Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario recently announced that it is embracing paperless operations and investing in high-quality document imaging solutions to optimize its electronic health records undertaking. As part of this process the medical center will be utilizing document conversion services to bring two million laboratory records and other paperwork into the hospital's system. Rona Ambrose, Federal Minster of Health spoke at the project review.

"It was great to see first-hand the progress that has been made in electronic health records here at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario," Ambrose said. "What I have seen is proof of how innovation in technology can improve the delivery of healthcare for children and their families, like eight-year old Camryn who I met today."

Integrated health records – what the hospital is calling paperless document management software that integrates its entire complex under the same technology banner – will provide significant improvements to the speed and quality of care that the facility is able to provide to children in Eastern Ontario. CHEO allotted $7.7 million for this effort, $2.8 million of which was designated from the federally Canada Health Infoway fund.

"Ensuring that health care teams at CHEO have secure electronic access to charts and tools that support patient care is critical to improving the patient experience," said Richard Alvarez, President and CEO of Canada Health Infoway. "This is one of many examples of how federal funding is helping to provide better quality and access to care that results in more efficient delivery of health care for Canadians."

Going paperless with its health records will help CHEO better connect with parents and patients with doctors and other hospital staff, improving productivity, collaboration and access key records that will boost the quality of care and patient-doctor relationship significantly.

"We will connect parents and every health professional involved in a child's care to the information they need, at their fingertips," said CHEO president and CEO Alex Munter.

By investing in high-quality document imaging services, other hospitals can take the same level of initiative that CHEO has and focus on embracing EHRs as a basic level of day to day operations. These efforts are becoming critical, especially in the U.S. where electronic record adoption is becoming mandatory for many healthcare providers in order to keep pace with federal regulations and patient demand.

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