Manitoba says shared electronic hospital records will be available provincewide by next spring, a shift meant to reduce delays and errors in care.
Manitoba is aiming to have shared electronic patient records available in all hospitals by March 31, 2027, replacing paper charts with a system designed to let a patient’s hospital care history follow them from one facility to another.
The provincial rollout is meant to speed up care and reduce the need for faxes and phone calls when doctors need current information about medications, diagnoses, consultations and treatment notes. The first phase will apply to acute care sites, including emergency departments, in-patient units and urgent care centres; family doctors and pharmacists will not have access.
Dr. Iraj Ghanbari, site medical lead at Lakeshore General Hospital in Ashern, said his hospital has been using the system for all new emergency department patients since March. He said it is already making consultations faster because specialists can see a patient’s plan in the digital system within minutes.
“I think Manitoba was behind in this, and I’m so happy this is happening, because this makes everything safer,” Ghanbari said.
At Ashern, records are being created for emergency patients during their first visit under the new system, so past paper-chart information is not automatically included. From that point onward, staff can add current and future details and search records using a patient’s personal health identification number.
The system is already in place at St. Boniface Hospital and the Women’s Hospital in Winnipeg, as well as in Ashern, Brandon, Portage la Prairie and Neepawa. Health Sciences Centre, Manitoba’s largest hospital, is expected to join in August.
Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara called the March deadline “absolutely an ambitious target,” but said the province has put governance and accountability measures in place to support the rollout. The NDP government has spent about $160 million on the electronic patient record project so far, with $36.5 million budgeted for capital costs and $18 million for operating costs this year.
Doctors Manitoba, which represents physicians, said it welcomes the move toward electronic records but will be watching implementation closely. The organization cautioned that major health IT projects in other jurisdictions have sometimes failed to save time or simplify work when consultation was ineffective, timelines were rushed or administrative tasks shifted to doctors.
The province’s longer-term goal is a fully electronic patient record and charting system, though Asagwara said that could take years and some paper may remain necessary if technology fails. For now, the next major test will be bringing the province’s largest hospital into the system before the provincewide hospital deadline next spring.
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