LHSC implements new eHub program to make patient transitions easier and more efficient

London Health Sciences Center’s (LHSC) new health information exchange system hopes to make patient transitions from hospitals to long-term care homes more clean, concise, and clear.

It's an online program that gives care homes access to new residents’ health records, allowing them to offer immediate and quality care.

"In the past, long-term care facilities would have to wait and sometimes call LHSC to get information about their patients that we have transferred back to their facilities,” explained Jackie Schleifer Taylor, president and CEO of LHSC.

“With this initiative, that information will be available to them within 30 minutes," she said.

There are currently 29 long-term care homes participating in the initial phase of this project, with plans for more to join this year.

Sprucedale Care Centre in Strathroy hopes the eHub system will enable employees to do this part of their job with ease.

"There's a lot of go-between a couple of different programs or waiting for faxes to come through. I think there is a risk when you're waiting for a fax or maybe you aren't getting the full picture,” said Sara Fox from Sprucedale Care Centre.

“With this new program, it's a one stop shop and you can gather all of your data in one place," Fox added.

That digital platform was designed and implemented in partnership with a network of Ontario hospitals, Ontario Health, TransForm Shared Service Organization and Oracle Health.

It took the Digital team at LHSC over a year to implement and it’s not done yet.

Andrew Mes, digital health executive at LHSC said the goal is to make patient information easy for each healthcare system to access when needed. 

“Later this fall, information will flow in the opposite direction, so from long-term care homes into acute care centres like London Health Sciences Centre. And then beyond that, we'll connect health information systems across the system,” Mes said.

Ultimately, LHSC hopes the patients, their families, and their caregivers will benefit from the efficiency.

“The entire system benefits when patients are enabled to feel that there has been a seamlessness in the transfer of their care from one organization to another,” Schleifer Taylor said.