b'TRANSITIONSTurning the dial on Project AMPLIFICreating seamless transitions between hospitals andlong-term careBy Matthew BradfordE ffective long-term care reliesprocesses take time, are cumbersome,pilot project to be the firston seamless transitions in care.and leave things open to error orCanadian hospital to achieve Thats the mandate guidingdelays. Plus, if clinicians don\'t have alldigital integration and establish Ontarios Project AMPLIFI, a digitalthe information on hand on the long- interoperability between its Hamilton initiative led by St. Joseph\'s Healthcareterm care side, the resident is at riskhospital, which uses Epic EMR Hamilton (SJHH) and PointClickCareof ending up back in the emergencyinstance, and long-term care home to enhance clinical data sharingdepartment within a couple of days." partner, St. Josephs Villa in Dundas, across a residents care journey. which uses PointClickCare. "It\'s not how our system should Project AMPLIFI is the provincial dataoperate," Sachs continues, "and The pilot generated a number of integration project implementingthose gaps can easily be bridgedbenefits for clinicians. For one, it PointClickCare\'s Post-Acute Carethrough digitization." enabled long-term care clinicians to Network Management solution.receive the resident data needed to First introduced in the U.S., it is aProject AMPLIFI began in 2020 whenfacilitate faster and more effective cloud-based electronic health recordPointClickCare saw the value oftransfers. Moreover, the ability to software tool that uses advancedbringing its data-sharing integrationreceive resident or patient data data tools and digital connectivitysolution into Canada. The aim,directly in clinicians\' charts saved to facilitate the fast, secure andsays Sachs, was to introduce aprocessing times, reduced the risks discreet sharing of a patients clinicaldigital solution that would bridgeof human error, and strengthened information (e.g., records, medication,the communication gap betweencommunication around key elements allergies, etc.) between differentOntarios electronic health recordlike medical reconciliations. medical record software platforms. (EHR) and electronic medical record In so doing, it enables more(EMR) platforms: EHRs and EMRsOverall, says Sarah Culgin, Research connected care and seamlesshave come a long way, and whileManager at SJHH, "Clinicians and transitions between hospitals andthey\'re very good at what they dousers at St. Joseph\'s Villa and St. long-term care homes by providingwithin a particular health institution,Josephs Healthcare Hamilton found clinicians at both ends with atheyre not very good at sharingthat they were able to do certain parts continually updated electronic healthinformation across those silos. Projectof their job more efficiently. They record that follows residents andAMPLIFI was us saying that we havethought it was a safer and faster way patients through their care journeys. this ability to do that, and we\'d love tothan paper to exchange all of this bring it into our backyard in Ontario. important information." "Traditionally, if a resident or a patient went from the hospital to long-termPiloting the solutionFollowing the pilot, the Ontario care, their clinical information wasProject AMPLIFI took shape whengovernment announced that shared mostly through paper or fax,PointClickCare partnered with improving patient transitions waswhich had to be re-entered on theSt. Josephs Healthcare Hamiltona key priority and committedreceiving end," says Jonathan Sachs,(SJHH) to use its data-sharing softwarefunding to support the sharing of Director of Government Affairs within a pilot. With additional support fromclinical data across the province. PointClickCare. "Those manuala CAN Health grant, SJHH led theWith funding from the Ministry of 18 LONG TERM CARE TODAY Spring/Summer 2025'