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If all goes according to plan, at 6 a.m. Saturday, the people who work at the IWK Health Center will become a test case for generational change in Nova Scotia's health care system.
That's when Halifax Children's Hospital will become the first facility in the province to implement a new electronic health records system that officials say will make patient care safer and more efficient and improve workflow for health care providers.
“This transition has taken a long time and a lot of work has been done to make this transition,” Dr. Krista Jangaard, IWK president and CEO, said in an interview Thursday.
The new system was years in the making, and prior to its announcement, the continued use of several systems, some still paper-based, was seen as a deterrent to attracting health workers.
But almost three years ago The Nova Scotia government has signed a $365 million contract with Oracle Cerner Canada. Design, build and maintain a system that will create an electronic record system that will track patients no matter what facility they go to and is accessible to anyone who cares for them.
Up to this point, there have been delays and launch dates have been pushed back several times. Nova Scotia Health Services has changed its plans several times for when it will go live, with the most recent update being that all sites in the central zone will be launched on May 9, 2026, and the remaining zones will appear on dates yet to be announced.
With the launch imminent for people who work at IWK, Jangaard said there is a mixture of anticipation and nervousness, something she said people at other sites who have gone through similar transitions have told her to expect.
Pre-transition training began this fall, and Jangaard said all physicians and nurse practitioners working at the site have completed that work, and 94 percent of the remaining staff have also completed the training, with those who have not yet completed the process either being on leave or not scheduled to work at the site for the next three weeks.
A tool that supports care
Following the process of transferring all patients already in the hospital or registered in the emergency department to the new system at midnight Saturday, Jangaard said there will be a final status check at 5 a.m. before all aspects of the medical center switch over.
“We will use what is called the big bang,” she said.
The only change patients should notice is that there are more people working at the hospital this morning. There will be support staff who are experts in the new system, as well as additional nursing staff who are more familiar with the system and will be able to assist their colleagues throughout the hospital.
“They don't want anything to get in the way of them providing good care,” Jangaard said, “so the key is to put in place scaffolds that will help them learn the system and get back into the real world as quickly as possible.”
Connecting to other systems
One Person One Record is a tool that supports care, and Jangaard said the support will mean a connection that has never been seen in the province's health care system.
The new system will mean creating a single digital record that will track patients wherever they go, meaning patients will no longer need to tell their entire story every time they see someone, and providers will know exactly what tests have been ordered without having to search multiple databases.
The benefits will become even more apparent as more sites come online over the next year, Jangaard said. IWK staff will eventually be able to access patient files before they arrive if they have been seen by a provider at another facility in the province.
“That’s the number one thing,” Jangaard said.
“It’s not a single episode of care—you have a pathway of care, and it can be linked to geographic regions and providers.”
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