Health care providers in acute care
settings across south western Ontario are in the process of gaining access to a
new repository of information called the Digital Health Drug Repository (DHDR),
a new data set to the connecting South West Ontario (cSWO) Program’s Regional
Clinical Viewer, ClinicalConnect™. Authorized ClinicalConnect users already
have access to hospital pharmacy information, and now the DHDR has expanded on
this information to include dispensed drug data covered under the Ontario Drug
Benefit (ODB) program, data from the Narcotics Monitoring System (NMS) and
pharmacy services, thereby giving clinicians a more comprehensive understanding
of a patient’s medication history.
Dr. Dan Finnigan, at the Guelph Family Health Team, uses DHDR to support patient care in his roles as a family physician and as a hospitalist at Guelph General Hospital.
Access to the DHDR through ClinicalConnect was first launched in the Waterloo Wellington region as part of an early adopter initiative involving Guelph General Hospital, Guelph Family Health Team, and Guelph Community Health Centre. As the cSWO Change Management and Adoption Delivery Partner for the Waterloo Wellington region, the eHealth Centre of Excellence has been engaged in several benefits realization case studies to identify and explore the value of the DHDR in acute care and primary care. Through on-line surveys and individual interviews with clinicians at the participating early adopter organizations in Guelph, we have learned how the DHDR is being used to inform narcotics prescribing decisions with new patients, support the Best Possible Medication History (BPMH) process, monitor opioid contracts, and support the management of opioid withdrawal.
Dr. Ian Digby, an emergency department physician at the Guelph General Hospital, recently described his use of the DHDR during a
CBC radio interview.
What’s Next? Currently, DHDR is being rolled out to all 69 hospital sites in south west Ontario. Deployment of DHDR to community care and primary care organizations will continue through a planned approach. The eHealth Centre of Excellence will be engaged in a broader research project with ethics approval through McMaster University, to gain a deeper understanding of the use of the DHDR in acute care. We plan to hold a symposium to share the findings from this research in spring 2018.
Question: Recent guideline updates for opioid therapy have recommended suggesting alternative therapies and restricting opioid dosing in certain situations while other media reports include patient perspectives that suggest responsible opioid users are being penalized. To what extent are tools like the DHDR integration: a) necessary to manage the situation? And b) sufficient to manage the situation?
Learn more about the cSWO Program benefits realization initiative here.
Learn more about the eHealth Centre of Excellence here.