New Technology Needed
New Technology Needed to Ensure Emergency Doctors Are More Likely to be at the Hospital… When You Arrive
Halifax Conference to Address Emergency Management Issues
For Immediate Release
Contact: Wayne Foster Tel: 613.277.4800 Email: (waynefoster@rogers.com) waynefoster (at) rogers (dot) com
People’s lives often depend on access to emergency doctors. Delays in locating on-call physicians during an emergency are often due to antiquated paper-based shift scheduling systems. That means a doctor may miss a shift and not be there when you arrive, further complicating overcrowding and long wait times that afflict many hospitals today.
In an emergency, such as a mass casualty or pandemic outbreak, such outmoded systems make it difficult for healthcare workers to locate and to mobilize frontline personnel.
Knowing where resources are located at all times and being able to access them, are key priorities for emergency and pandemic planning committees in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The International Conference on Emergency Medicine (ICEM) in Halifax on June 3-7, 2006 echoes this need in the topics addressed in two major speeches: The Threat of Bio terrorism — Communication Challenges for Emergency Medicine, and Management of Mass Casualties at the ED Level.
Canadian technology for scheduling comes in the form of on-line, real-time software called “Chyma™” (pronounced ki-ma). Now, locating a physician in an emergency comes with the click of a mouse button. With Chyma™, doctors’ shifts are posted live and can be accessed and traded anywhere at anytime. This increases efficiency, reduces missed shifts, and saves healthcare dollars.
Montreal-based obstetrician Guy-Paul Gagné, MD, FRCPC, knows first hand the challenges of locating a doctor using paper schedules. He was responsible for the rotating shifts of nine doctors in three hospitals, and explained that it is nearly impossible to create a shift schedule without knowing all the inter-related schedules of everyone involved.
“My secretary would spend half-a-day just locating doctor,” said Dr Gagné, “That time lost has a huge cost component, not to mention any inconvenience to a patient.”
“Now that shift changes are in real-time, we have a good, current up-to-date schedule,” said Dr Mark Fletcher, Halifax medical director of Family Focus Medical Clinics.”This technology tool has solved a lot of the problems that can occur when physicians start trading shifts.”
“Chyma™ is considerably faster than a system where someone is calling physicians and trying to coordinate them”, said Dr Ian Cohen, medical director of Upper Village Walk-in Medical Centre in Toronto, who worked in ER for 12 years and knows how much work it is to contact all the physicians to fill a shift. “That’s an enormous burden”, he said.
Chyma Systems (www.chyma.net) is owned by IsaiX Technologies Inc. (www.isaix.com), a Montreal-based technology company with a focus on communications, training and marketing in the life science and financial sectors. Chyma Systems will be at ICEM in Halifax.