Kenora patients can have their information available at hospitals throughout Northwest Ontario through the new electronic medical records system called ‘MediTech’ which is now online at Lake of the Woods Hospital.
“We’ve been working on this over the past several months on this. Now, if you’ve been in our hospital and have a record, from this day forward it will be able to be accessed by the other hospitals in the region. We were the last one to come online,” explained the hospital’s chief financial officer Cindy Gasparini.
At the moment, the only information being shared is patient registration and billing information. It will take up to three years before all the features of the new electronic records system are fully implemented.
The plan is to make it possible for the hospital to refer a patient to Thunder Bay for specialized treatment and have their information, test results, and charts easily accessed and updated by the specialist.
“That way you wouldn’t need to have a test don here and then have it done again in another community. It saves time for hospitals,” said Gasparini.
People hoping to seek treatment in Winnipeg will not be able to take advantage of the MediTech system though.
“It’s just a regional thing for now. Eventually it will be for all of Ontario, because that’s the goal of making it province wide … So the next phase is lab and pharmacy and that’s going to be over the next year,” she said.
