Fingers are crossed this Tuesday at the Command Center, where officials overseeing the rollout of the Digital Health Record (DSN) in the two pilot projects of the Mauricie-Centre-du-Québec and Nord-de-l’Île-de-Montréal CIUSSS are based, following the difficulties encountered the previous day.
Erika Bially, Santé Québec’s vice president of IT, provided an update on Monday morning’s incident, emphasizing that the Epic computer system had not gone down. “We really did experience significant connection fluctuations, but at no point during that period was there a complete outage,” she explained. The incident began at 7:25 a.m. and continued until 9:25 a.m., at which point “we discovered that a piece of network equipment was malfunctioning. We then implemented corrective measures, and no further incidents were reported.”
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The impression of an outage among users was, however, justified based on her description during the daily Santé Québec update: “We had disconnection issues because the network was slow. That means that when people tried to connect amid the slowness, the connection wouldn’t go through. (…) The slow network meant that someone who was connected could be disconnected, or might not even be able to connect in the first place.”
Nathalie Petitclerc, CEO of the CIUSSS Mauricie-Centre-du-Québec, noted that the issues arose at the start of the week when a large number of new users were attempting to log in, and she praised the collaborative spirit of the staff on the ground. “It really highlighted the teams’ adaptability, professionalism, and mutual support. We were able to implement certain alternative solutions under those circumstances, though they were only temporary.”
She was accompanied by Samuel Pruneau, an emergency room physician, who praised the new tool he was given. “When I look at my experience so far, I can’t help but be excited about the capabilities we’ll have in the coming weeks. I can’t believe how much more efficient we’ll be—it’s going to be a huge, huge plus. And it seems like that really motivates people on the front lines. We see all the improvements we can make, the speed we’re able to achieve.”
Adélaïde De Melo, CEO of the CIUSSS du Nord-de-l’Île, explained that they were primarily monitoring the outpatient component, where professional staff were just getting started with the new system. “It went well, but it’s clear that clinicians and doctors were still getting the hang of it, so we adjusted our support to reflect that new reality.”
Bially noted that nearly 20,000 users have logged into the DSN out of an expected total of 30,000 users across both CIUSSSs, and that this total is expected to be reached in the coming days. She said she expects a significant reduction in the number of “tickets”—that is, reports of difficulties or problems—related to login, access, profile setup, and other issues related to users’ adoption of the new tool.
Health Minister Sonia Bélanger said she is very satisfied with the DSN rollout so far. Appearing on Patrick Lagacé’s show on 98.5, she reiterated that she expected glitches like the one experienced on Monday when implementing a new IT system and that what was important “is that the teams can respond quickly. And yesterday, they responded quickly.”
She declined to speculate on a rollout date for the DSN across the entire healthcare network, or even on the future of the Epic system, noting that Santé Québec should first evaluate the results of the two pilot projects, but she reaffirmed her firm intention to proceed with the digital transformation of the network.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
