In May 2023, Carleton Health and Counselling Services introduced CHR Connect, an exciting, comprehensive all-in-one platform designed to facilitate appointment booking and communication between students and their providers.
CHR Connect empowers students to effortlessly book appointments, receive timely reminders, and engage in secure communications with the clinic and their medical team, all from the comfort of their chosen device.
“CHR Connect represents a significant enhancement in the service provided by Health and Counselling Services, ensuring students receive the care they need efficiently and securely,” said Alanna Cragg, Health Clinic Manager with Health and Counselling Services.
The new CHR system, short for Collaborative Health Record, is novel in that it is both practitioner and patient facing, enabling direct communication and file sharing between patients and healthcare providers. It also supports video appointments through a secure medical record platform, making it a unified system where patients can manage their appointments, send messages, and attend appointments all in one place. A typical Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems is typically only practitioner facing and does not offer the same level of integration or direct patient interaction.
The incorporation of a secure messaging platform within CHR facilitates improved communication by allowing patients to receive test results and directly interact with staff and practitioners through their chosen medium. Preset appointment reminders diminish no-show rates, optimizing clinic operations and reducing patient billing.
“It’s a great step forward for our students, who are seeing shorter wait times and are more like to receive important communications,” said Cragg. “It is also creating efficiencies for our practitioners; the platform is web based and allows for more accessible use without the need for a VPN or remote desktop. Very little of what we do happens outside of CHR Connect.”
Information Technology Services professionals worked closely with Health and Counselling Services to facilitate the transfer from Carleton’s previous EMR system to the new platform, which included building the system itself and integrating various forms and health questionnaires. They provided expertise in information technology and helping to navigate the migration.
“It was no small task to integrate paper forms, questionnaires, and lab documents into CHR Connect, which required categorizing and coding them into the electronic system while working to ensure data was preserved,” said David Firstbrook, Senior Project Management Specialist. “But the project team knew that a vastly improved patient experience and enhanced clinic operations would ultimately be well worth the effort.”