Palliative Care Suite
- 5 related modules
- Management and assessment of palliative patients
- Flexible to accommodate a patient’s level of mobility
- Improves compliancy compared to a paper-based system
- Customizable threshold for email alerts to appropriate care providers
This suite of products consists of five separate applications that work in conjunction with one another to achieve an improved mechanism for symptom management. It also facilitates effective communications between the many groups involved in patient management.
The Palliative Care System was successfully piloted at Kingston General Hospital in February, 2005 and began active production in June, 2005. To date, the applications has stored thousands of ESAS assessments and sent a corresponding number of email alert notifications to healthcare providers. The implementation of this solution was deemed to be extremely successful by both KGH and associated Ministry of Health representatives. This positive outcome helped establish the system as an effective tool.
MODULES
1. Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale Kiosk
The Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale Kiosk is an application created for in-clinic use by patients. The application provides
a mechanism to guide patients through the ESAS questionnaire before their clinic
appointment which produces a paper report for patient charts. It also emails alerts
to appropriate healthcare providers when set thresholds have been exceeded by the
patient self-assessment. Click here to see a demo
2. Community Patient On-Line Assessments
This module helps to promote patients taking an active role in their
own healthcare management. It allows patients to complete multiple self-assessments
from home using their personal computers. Similar to the ESAS Kiosk, the application
sends targeted emails to healthcare providers within the hospital and community
when preset thresholds have been exceeded. Click here to see a demo
3. Tel-Assess
The Tel-Assess module is a touch-tone, phone-based application that provides a secondary
medium for patients to complete the Patient On-line Assessments. Patients who do
not have access to the internet or are not comfortable with technology still have
a means to complete assessments from the comfort of their homes by using a touch-tone
phone.
4. Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale Clinical Management
The ESAS Clinical Management component is a healthcare provider portal to securely access information
regarding patient assessments. This module allows healthcare providers, both in
the hospital and in the community, to view patient assessment data over time. In
addition, the component has features to indicate general performance of the system
across the continuum of care.
5. Palliative Care Clinical Management System
The Palliative Care Clinical Management system is a complete Electronic Medical Record
(EMR) for palliative care physicians. The system was developed with physicians,
for physicians to use at the patient bed-side. The application allows a palliative
care physician to complete assessments including ESAS, physical examinations, pain
management, medications and reporting.