Digital advantage in the COVID-19 response: perspective from Canada’s largest integrated digitalized healthcare system

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has challenged healthcare systems worldwide. Uncertainty of transmission, limitations of physical healthcare system infrastructure and supplies as well as workforce shortages require dynamic adaption of resource deployment to manage rapidly evolving care demands, ideally based on real time data for the entire population. Moreover, shut down of traditional face-to-face care infrastructure requires rapid deployment of virtual health care options to avoid collapse of health organizations. The Alberta Electronic Health Record Information System is one of the largest population based comprehensive electronic medical record (EMR) installations. Alberta's long standing solid telehealth hardware-, training-, provider remunerationand legislation infrastructure has enabled quick transition to virtual healthcare. Virtual health services including asynchronous secure clinical communications, real-time virtual care via messaging, telephony or video conferencing (telehealth) and ancillary functions like triage, scheduling, documentation and reporting, the previously established virtual hospital program with home monitoring, virtual health assessments, medication review, education and support for patients and families and coordination between family doctors, specialists and other health team members help to control viral transmission, protect healthcare personnel and save supplies. Moreover, rapid launch of online screening and triage tools to guide testing and isolation, online result sharing, infected patient and contact tracing including a smartphone exposure tracking application (ABTraceTogether), electronic best practice alerts and decision support tools, test and treatment order sets for standardized COVID-19 management, continuous access to population level real-time data to inform healthcare provider, public health and government decisions have become key factors in the management of a global crisis in Alberta.

IoT MEMS: IoT-Based Paradigm for Medical Equipment Management Systems of ICUs in Light of COVID-19 Outbreak

“…Poor system usability such as difficulty to access certain information and wrong document capturing can impact the ICU process flow and the outcome. Also, system failure can affect the information flow which will adversely impact the quality of ICU services [55], [58]. To improve the preparedness of ICUs during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, it is crucial to improve the quality of the information in clinical information systems by using real-time technology such as IoT for collecting medical equipment data including the location of medical equipment and medical devices' maintenance records.…”

Digital-Health-Highlights 2020

“…So konnte die vorhin erwähnte TeleCheck-AF-Studie erfolgreich eine Patientenversorgung sichern trotz weitgehender Ausgangsbeschränkungen und reduzierter Kapazitäten im Krankenhaus. Eine kürzlich publizierte Arbeit umfasste Online-Tools zur Risikoselbsteinschätzung sowohl für Personal im Gesundheitswesen als auch für die breite Bevölkerung, eine Verknüpfung von Online-Screenings mit SARS-CoV-2-Teststrategien und Contact Tracing (basierend auf der elektronischen Patientenakte), ein standardisiertes Management mit Clinical-Decision-Support und einen Ausbau der telemedizinischen Angebote [ 31 ]. Dieses umfangreiche und hochskalierbare Gesamtkonzept konnte in diesem großen Ausmaß nur durch das bereits seit 1997 bestehende elektronische Patientenaktensystem in Alberta implementiert werden.…”

Development of a Web-Based Medical Record Management Software for Digital Immigrant Users

“…Baumgart et al also consider that the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is accelerating the digital revolution in healthcare; they affirm that highly automated healthcare systems employing networked Electronic Medical Records (EMR) are fundamental for the success of healthcare programs [2]. This idea supports the impact that web-based platforms currently have in the implementation of medical record management systems.…”

“…By using collected data, it has been possible to increase the hepatitis C and HIV screening rates in primary care practices in more than a 20% [16]. Other studies emphasize the importance of a digitally connected healthcare system in times of pandemic [2].…”