Use of IHealth Electronic Records System Suspended at Nanaimo Hospital

Island Health has pressed the pause button on its new IHealth at Nanaimo hospital suspended$174-million electronic health-record system at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital to give exhausted health-care providers a break. On Monday, Dr. Brendan Carr, Island Health president and chief executive officer, confirmed Island Health is suspending the computerized ordering of medications, lab tests and diagnostic images on the IHealth paperless system until improvements are made.

“Despite everybody trying really, really hard, there’s a level of exhaustion on the site,” said Carr. “When I go up there and talk to my colleagues, they’re tired and they’re really uncertain. I think we kind of just need to take a pause to give everybody a little space and then, from that, be able to go forward.”

On Feb. 7, members of the Nanaimo Medical Staff Association voted overwhelmingly to stop using the system. Last week, Health Minister Terry Lake and his deputy met with the Island Health board and senior management to discuss their concerns. “We said: ‘Look, let’s work with the physicians and medical staff at Nanaimo, let’s walk through what [a suspension] would look like, because it may not be simple, it may actually have some unintended consequences,” Lake said on Monday...