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If all goes according to plan, at 6 a.m. AT on Saturday people working at the IWK Health Centre will become the test case for a generational change to Nova Scotia’s health-care system.
That’s when the Halifax-based children’s hospital will become the first site in the province to go live with a new electronic medical record system that officials say will make patient care safer and more efficient, while also improving the workflow for providers.
“This has been a long time coming and a lot of work has gone into making this transition,” Dr. Krista Jangaard, president and CEO of the IWK, said during an interview Thursday.
The new system has been years in the making and, prior to its announcement, the continued reliance on multiple systems — some of which are still paper-based — was seen as a deterrent for attracting health-care professionals.
But almost three years ago, the Nova Scotia government signed a $365-million contract with Oracle Cerner Canada to design, build and maintain a system that allows for an electronic record system that follows patients no matter what site they go to and is accessible by anyone providing them with care.
There have been delays getting to this point, with launch dates pushed back several times. Nova Scotia Health has changed its own plans multiple times for when it will go live, with the most recent update being that all sites in the central zone will launch on May 9, 2026, and remaining zones will follow on yet-to-be-announced dates.
With launch imminent for people who work at the IWK, Jangaard said there is a mix of anticipation and nerves, something she said people at other sites that have gone through similar transitions have told her is to be expected.
Training for the changeover started this fall and Jangaard said all doctors and nurse practitioners who work at the site have completed that work and 94 per cent of remaining staff have also been trained, with those yet to go through the process either being on leave or not scheduled to work at the site for the next three weeks.
A tool that supports care
Following a process at midnight on Saturday to move all patients already in the hospital or registered with the emergency department into the new system, Jangaard said there would be one last status check at 5 a.m. before all aspects of the health centre make the changeover.
“We will be going with the so-called big bang,” she said.
The only change patients should notice are more people working at the hospital that morning. There will be support staff who are experts in the new system, along with additional health-care staff who are more familiar with the system who can help their colleagues throughout the hospital.
“They don’t want anything that’s going to interfere with doing good care,” said Jangaard, “so putting the supports that help them learn that system and get up in the real world as quickly as possible is key.”
Tapping into other systems
One Person One Record is a tool that supports care and Jangaard said that support will mean a connectivity the province’s health-care system has never had.
The new system will mean the creation of a single digital record that follows patients where they go, meaning there will no longer be a need for patients to recite their entire history each time they see someone and providers know precisely what tests have been ordered without having to search multiple databases.
The benefits will become even more obvious as more sites are connected over the next year, said Jangaard. Eventually, staff at the IWK will be able to access a patient’s file even before they’ve arrived if they’ve been seen by a provider at another site in the province.
“That’s the No. 1 thing,” said Jangaard.
“It isn’t a separate episode of care — you have a journey of care and it can be connected over geographies and over providers.”
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