Provincial Health Services Authority

As a BC resident, you may not have heard of CareConnect yet but stay tuned! Our team was a part of developing this regional interoperable Electronic Health Record solution for the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) to help make healthcare better for all BC residents.
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BRIEF PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

The CareConnect application provides a set of advanced tools to search and access Electronic Healthcare Records (EHRs) for patients using a Personal Health Number (PHN), a facility Medical Record Number (MRN) or patient name. The application also allows  authorized users to view and print patient demographics, encounters, transcribed reports and lab results.

 

As a result, CareConnect can help clinicians provide faster diagnoses and treatment with no need to duplicate tests recently performed. In addition, patients would not need to repeat information that is already available in the system.

 

Using single sign on, CareConnect links authorized users to patient demographic data and patient encounters. The application also provides access to a chronological summary of encounter records from Vancouver Acute, Vancouver Community, Providence Health Care, Richmond Hospital and Lions Gate Hospital using the most current data from the provincial Enterprise Master Person Index (EMPI) database.

 

In addition, CareConnect provides an integrated lab summary and detailed lab test results from Vancouver Coastal Health and, for authorized users, private sector lab reports*.

 

CareConnect also gives authorized users access to PharmaNet information on medications dispensed in B.C. community pharmacies. This service is being phased in across Vancouver Coastal Health and Providence Health Care.

 

*Private lab results are currently being rolled out across Vancouver Coastal Health.

CHALLENGE

The core challenge was the unification of lab results since different labs use different methodologies and formats. In addition, it was critical to implement claim-based federated security.

SOLUTION

We used a service oriented architecture and an agile methodology that included an analysis of the user story and definition of acceptance criteria. We also worked closely with the product manager to add new features to the application.

We used the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) to obtain live feeds from numerous data sources including the Vancouver Health Authority and Providence Health Care.

Additionally, we simplified access to the system, improved the user experience and provided a secure and reliable application for the province’s electronic health records.

Type: Web Application

Industry: Health
Methodology: Agile
Team Size: 5 Developers, 1 Project Manager, 1 QA Specialist
Duration:  Twelve months
Current Status: Completed sub-contract project
Technologies: .NET, ASP.NET, MVC 5, Web API 2, C#, Oracle, WCF, MS-SQL, HTML5, JavaScript, jQuery, Ajax, AngularJS, MongoDB, SignalR, WebSockets, TypeScript