Care Coordination Centre helps guide patients’ journeys at the QEII

Nova Scotia Health launched the Care Coordination Centre (C3) to unite provincial health capacity and improve patient flow at QEII.  “The idea is to apply a command centre concept to health care,” says Gordon Peckham, senior director of the Care Coordination Centre Operations. “It gives us real-time, live data to help inform decisions around access and flow.”

Supported by GE HealthCare Command Center technology, C3 enables patient care that is coordinated and integrated. “Before C3 we did not have an automated view of the system,” Peckham says. “Patient flow managers were doing manual reports, unit by unit. By the time that data reached the leadership teams, there was a risk it was outdated. Now we can look at these data streams and understand what is happening in the system as we speak.”

C3 is essential to daily operations at QEII. At 10 a.m. daily, representatives from every department involved in access and flow — including emergency, surgery, medicine, geriatrics, diagnostic imaging, continuing care, and rehab — meet virtually. “Each of these teams can help each other in different ways,” Peckham says. “These meetings create a forum for all these different services to discuss various issues and problem solve together.”
 
The successful launch of C3 at QEII is the beginning of a province-wide initiative. “We’re starting with access and flow at the QEII, but it will expand across the province and into other services,” Gordon says. “It’s about providing access to the right care, by the right provider at the right time.”
 
Command Center technology is an important part of the commitment to use innovation to improve healthcare across the province. “We are amongst the first hospitals in Canada to create a command centre within our healthcare system, and it is rapidly transforming the culture of innovation at Nova Scotia Health,” says Doris Grant, senior director, Innovation, Nova Scotia Health. “C3 is generating large volumes of real-time operational data that will create endless opportunities for research within Nova Scotia Health, as well as our innovation ecosystem.”