Windsor Regional Hospital is set to e-VOLVE to digital record keeping next week.
The program to digitize all paper records has already been launched at Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, Erie Shores Healthcare and Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare.
Once Windsor Regional Hospital gets its system going, a patient's medical history will be available to all four hospitals in seconds.
Chief Nursing Officer Karen Riddell says COVID-19 derailed the program launch in the spring of 2020.
"We felt it was safer to ensure we had adequate human resources to take care of the patients that were coming in, so we decided to delay our implementation," she added.
Riddell says converting paper records is labour intensive, but the finished product will save time and lives by, "ensuring that we have accurate and complete health records available at the point of care as well as remotely."
Digital record keeping is better for patient care, according to Chief of Staff Wassim Dr. Wassim Saad.
"That patient's journey regardless of what hospital they're in throughout our entire region, a healthcare provider will have access to that information to provide safer care," he says. "It's very exciting."
Sarnia's Bluewater Health still has to launch its program to complete the network of five hospital in the Erie St. Clair Region.
The e-VOLVE program goes live at Windsor Regional Hospital on April 11.