Newsletter Summer 2009

Message from the President

It has been an exciting year of ONIG activities so far.  We continue to have rich and fulfilling education days that are well attended in person and as well by OTN and WebCast.  We are thrilled to offer the sessions via webcast and to be able to archive the presentations for the future.

Please take some time to check out our NEW website.  We are proud of the new site and all that it offers,.  We will be monitoring the site activitity and getting formal feedback from our members in late 2009.  The website contains up to date information for upcomig ONIG events, membership information, and links to related web sites.  You can also sign up for automatic updates from the site.  This is just the beginning for the site and we plan to continue to expand the functionality.

As ONIG president, I attended the RNAO AGM in April and had the opportunity to network with other interest group leaders and as well meet with more of our members and learn more about how we could add more value to our group for our membership.  The RNAO AGM provides a great opportunity to see what other interest groups are doing and validates what an outstanding interest group ONIG has become.

This is a very exciting time for ONIG as we start to plan more for our future.  At the AGM in December 2008, the executive met and as a result of some good brainstorming and current state analysis we realized we are at a point where we need to look at our group's goals and strategic plan.  ONIG has partnered with the RNAO Center of Nursing Excellence to work with the executive and members to gather information and help us create a plan for the next five to seven years.  The executive has had their first meeting to start this work and we will be working with our LARs and members in the next five months to develop our comprehensive plan.  More information will be coming.

I would also like to thank the ONIG executives who volunteer their time and energies to making ONIG the success that it is.  They're an amazing group and a pleasure to work with.  Thanks to you for all that you do!

New Website feature

If you would like automatic feeds of the latest updates on the ONIG website enter your email address in the Stay Up to Date section.

Check out ONIG Twitter to find out what's being said about Informatics.

Ottawa Education Day - June 5, 2009

The second education day of 2009 was held on June 5, 2009 at The Ottawa Hospital, Civic Campus.  We were thrilled to have seven different presentations from a variety of areas including; research, The Ottawa Hospitals vision for Nursing Informatics, and the IS journey to creating awareness in the clinical community, human factors, end user technology engagement, and the Nurse One Portal.   As well, the new ONIG website was unveiled to our members and guests.  There were 23 on site attendees, 12 sites via OTN and another 14 sites via Webcast.

Local Area Representatives - LARs - Current Work

The Local Area Representatives (LARs) have been doing some work on defining the role more clearly, and have been looking at opportunities to connect ONIG more effectively with the LHINs, the Ministry of Health, and RNAO's Peer to Peer initiative.  As well, the executive is conducting strategic planning which will further articulate the LAR roles and responsibilities.  Some ideas under consideration include providing the LHIN eHealth leads with the contact information for each LAR to promote alliance with ONIG, linking LARs with RNAO eHealth Champions which may potentially increase our membership and ensuring there is clarity between the LAR role and the RNAO's Peer role.  Work will continue over the next several months and is targeted for completion in December 09.

ONIG Fall Education Day in September

We are starting to plan a September Education Day.  Details will be posted in the next few weeks on date and venue.  If you have any suggestions for presentations please contact Andrea Partridge or Natasha Ringhofer.

CNIA Conference 2009

The CNIA Conference this year will be November 22 to 24th at the Delta Meadowvale Resort and Conference Centre in Mississauga. 

ONIG members receive a discounted membership with CNIA. 

The 9 hospitals of the Central East Local Health Information Network (CE LHIN) have developed a vision to share a single health information system (HIS).  To get to a single HIS, all 9 facilities need to use the same application, and after careful consideration, the hospitals collectively decided that Meditech's new Version 6.0 is their choice.  In preparation, standards teams, with representatives from each of the nine hospitals will work to define how to code and enter standardized data into each of the Meditech modules, and when appropriate, make evidence based recommendations to standardize and improve clinical processes and workflow according to best practice. 

On April 2, 2009, a group of nursing leaders from across the CE LHIN met to discuss the HIS consolidation initiative.  The focus of the meeting was how the 9 organizations can best prepare for the implementation of a standardized computerized clinical documentation system across the CE LHIN, given the CE LHIN plan to move to a single HIS.  With the subject matter expertise and facilitation skills of Lynn Nagle, Senior Nursing Advisor to Canada Health Infoway, group members discussed organizational strengths and challenges, and came up with strategies for overcoming top challenges.  Strategies such as cross-organizational resource sharing for training nurses about new technology were discussed.  Participants also achieved consensus on the functional priorities for the development of computerized clinical documentation.  A top priority is to develop computerized clinical documentation that streamlines nursing workflow and is easy to use.  Members overwhelmingly favoured focusing efforts initially on standardizing documentation associated with one type of clinical service (for example Medical Surgical documentation).  Participants also saw sense in building upon the consensus reached to date, seen with the standardized Nursing Admission Assessment and History form developed by the hospitals of the CE LHIN.  An end user commication plan for involving nurses in the planning, design, implementation and evaluation of the computerized clinical documentation system was determined to be a high priority.

Time is of the essence for this initiative; standards for the Meditech clinical documentation system need to be determined in the Fall of 2009 to enable Whitby Mental Health Centre to go live with the new Meditech system prior to the remaing 8 hospitals in the CE LHIN.  Under the leadership of Alison Mahony, Clinical Informatics Lead, Peterborough Regional Health Centre, and member of the CE LHIN eHealth Steering Committee, a new Clincial Informatics Advisory Group is taking shape in the CE LHIN.  This group will have broad representation from the 9 CE LHIN Hospital's Professional Practice, Quality, and Informatics departments and has strong CE LHIN Nursing Executive support.  The Advisory group will help oversee the entire CE LHIN HIS Consolidation Initiative and act to support and lead the planning and implementation of clinical information systems and electronic health records across the CE LHIN.  Based upon the consensus reached at the April 2 meeting, a detailed plan will be developed for how best to resource and standarize computerized clinical documentaton across the CE LHIN's 9 Hospitals.  Participants ended the day feeling positive and excited about the potential they see to use of technology to improve patient care, safety and quality, and support clincial practice.

RNFOO - ONIG Scholarship Recipients

taken from RNFOO website:  www.rnfoo.org

RNFOO administers ONIG's Scholarship awards.  This year 2 - $1500 awards were given to:

Susan Hall - halls@kgh.kari.net, taking Masters of Science in Health Informatics at University of Victoria and working at Kingston General Hospital and Hotel Dieu Hospital

Ashleigh Pugh - apugh@desouzanurse.ca, taking Master of Nursing at University of Toronto and working at de Souza Institute

Congratulations to both of you!