At Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) in Canada, geriatrician Dr. Justin Lee has been working with the health information technology services to develop a frailty scoring system within Epic, designed to give clinicians a “full picture” of patient frailty to support decision-making.
On the opportunity, HSS notes that existing tools to identify frailty, such as checklists, are “time-consuming and need to be done in-person during an appointment”; and Justin observes that the data fed into Epic every day is “generally underutilised”.
In September consultations were undertaken with clinicians responsible for inputting this data, with a data analyst to work on creating an algorithm for pulling information together to enable calculation of a frailty score.
Justin points out that geriatricians must “consider more than medical conditions”; social health must also be taken into account, such as isolation, cognition issues or physical challenges that can make meeting basic needs difficult.
“With the Epic system we can draw from all areas for a single score that allows clinicians to develop a more holistic and targeted plan to help our patients,” he said.
HTNI previously interviewed Ted Scott, VP of innovation and partnerships at Hamilton Health Sciences in Ontario, Canada, to discuss the healthcare network’s current digital projects and priorities, as well as the wider digital health landscape and opportunities for tech in Canadian healthcare. Click here to read what Ted had to say.
Other news from Canada includes the launch of patient summary features to support information sharing in New Brunswick, and Island Health’s roll-out of an electronic patient record featuring barcode scanners to track patient care.
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