THUNDER BAY – A dozen Northwestern Ontario hospitals will have a new technological backbone.
A new regional data centre, a two-year joint endeavour between the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, St. Joseph’s Care Group and the Northwest Health Alliance, will be operational by the end of March.
An update on the project was provided at a Friday morning news conference, announcing a $1 million contribution from Ottawa through FedNor.
The project, which has a price tag of between $4.5 million and $5 million, had previously received $1 million from the previous provincial government through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation.
The new data centre, which is located in the Health Services Centre building on Oliver Road, replaces and serves as a physical expansion to the facility that had been in place since the construction of the regional hospital. The data centre allows for further implementation of regional health records, along with research systems and business applications. The increased capacity also provides research opportunities through analytics and strengthens data management and usage.
Dawn Bubar, senior director of informatics for the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph’s Care Group, said the upgrade is needed given the dependence on technology in the modern world, particularly in the health care sector.
“Most of our clinical systems, all of our patient records, all of our patient images across the whole region are dependent on having a secure and reliable data centre,” Bubar said.
“When our original data centre was built, technology was not at the place it is today. It was not as critical to our day-to-day operations in ensuring the continuum of care for our patients.”
Bubar said all patient information is collected in a repository.
“That allows us not only for our clinicians to be able to view the patient’s records regardless of where that patient may move from town to town within the region. All of that clinical information travels with them with quick access for our clinicians,” Bubar said.
“The fact that we have a repository with all of this rich information will allow us to mine it and do other things in terms of planning, research and analysis of what’s going on in our sector.”
The enhancement will impact 12 hospitals, extending from Kenora to Manitouwadge.
MP Don Rusnak (Lib., Thunder Bay-Rainy River), whose riding includes a number of smaller health centres, said it’s an important project.
“We know that the Thunder Bay regional hospital is a regional hospital,” Rusnak said. “If they don’t have the information from places like Atikokan or Rainy River or Emo and the health centres there, then mistakes can be made. Having proper data is so important to the health well-being of Northern Ontarians, especially people in such a diverse and wide geographic area as Northwestern Ontario.”
Patty Hajdu, the minister of employment, workforce development and labour, said technology is increasingly driving decision making.
“This is also important because it leads to better decisions that small and regional hospitals, as well as our larger hospital, can make about patient care, about treatments, about incidents of disease or injury,” Hajdu said.
