Information Systems: Improving Care & Services

In today’s health care landscape, the Information Systems (IS) Department is a critical component to the delivery of quality patient care. As a shared service between Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph’s Care Group (SJCG), the IS Department collects, stores, and processes data and provides information to staff to support the clinical and administrative duties at our Hospital and SJCG.

The IS Department provides continuous support to critical systems, ensuring the availability of clinical information for the delivery of safe, timely and effective patient care. This includes supporting foundational systems such as the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system; the Picture Archiving Communications System (PACS) that stores Diagnostic Images such as X-Rays, CT scans, Ultrasounds, etc; and MOSAIQ, the Cancer Center EMR.

There are 34 highly qualified and trained IS team members with varying credentials and experience. Health care professionals in the IS Department include people with clinical and non-clinical designations including:

• Registered Nurses (RN);
• Medical Laboratory Technicians (MLT);
• Medical Radiation Technologists (MRT);
• Pharmacy Technicians;
• Information Systems; and
• Computer Science

These team members collaborate on a daily basis with hospital programs and services to implement, manage, support, and improve complex systems. The IS Department also supports software applications and interfaces to improve quality, reduce costs, and enhance the patient experience.

“Health care practitioners are able to find ways to improve their practice; improving turnaround time for patient diagnosis, advancing surgical procedures or improving patient care are just some of the ways our health care practitioners are changing the landscape of how care is provided,” said Dawn Bubar, Senior Director, Informatics.

In addition to our Hospital and SJCG, the IS Department also provides service and support to the 10 regional hospitals in Northwestern Ontario. Working in collaboration with the Northwest Health Alliance (NWHA), Northwest Local Health Integration Network (NW LHIN) and eHealth Ontario, the IS Department provides local, regional and provincial systems to health care providers. These systems provide health care providers with direct access to clinical data, allowing them to get the information they need when they want it in order to provide quality patient care.

System quality, information quality, service quality and user satisfaction are at the core of ensuring quality patient care for the IS Department. With health information including clinical, administrative and diagnostics, the IS Department delivers collaborative and coordinated care by connecting health care providers to their patients’ electronic chart, at anytime and anywhere.