Improving Psychological Health and Safety in Health Care Workers through Technology-Based Support

Eastern Health is engaging in a three-year research project to determine if technology-based support will increase employee knowledge and uptake of psychological support services; in turn, improving employee wellness factors and organizational healthy workplace indicators. This three-year research/innovation project has been funded by the NL Workforce Innovation Centre (NLWIC) at College of the North Atlantic (CNA) under the Canada/Newfoundland and Labrador Labour Market Development Agreement. Components of the project involve the development, implementation and evaluation of an employee virtual assistant, incorporating internal and external supports, as well as the platform for the organization’s new peer support program. As part of this research project, the health authority is partnering with IBM to develop this navigating virtual assistant to help employees find mental health tools and resources, using Eastern Health solutions, and other resources.


Cybersecurity

Eastern Health has partnered with the Canada-Israel Industrial Research and Development Foundation, the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information, Memorial University of Newfoundland including the Marine Institute, the College of the North Atlantic and its private innovation partners, to develop a Cybersecurity Healthcare Centre of Excellence in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The goal of this Centre of Excellence is to protect the provincial health-care infrastructure from cyberthreats while becoming a sought after destination for health-care related cybersecurity training.

Project duration

Phase one of three of the project is now complete.  Upon completion of the project, benefits will be realized at the provincial, national and international level including establishing a more secure and resilient healthcare infrastructure in the province, being a sought after destination for health-care cybersecurity training while raising awareness of cybersecurity risks in the health-care environment.  


Dialysis Simulation

Eastern Health has partnered with Baxter Canada for the provision of home hemodialysis technology.

A component of this partnership will be to implement a dialysis simulation centre that will assist patients by instilling confidence and independence to successfully transition to home dialysis treatment. The centre will provide a location for training new dialysis clinical staff and increase capacity to train patients using dialysis clinical staff with expertise in patient education.

The simulation centre will establish a collaborative education centre for the best medical technologies and innovations for dialysis. The centre will improve education opportunities for clinical staff and students and provide a location for validating latest innovations and technology in dialysis health care.  


3D Printing

3D PrintingPolyUnity leverages 3D printing and code-generated design frameworks to develop low-cost, high-fidelity medical simulation task trainers.

The goal is to provide clinical personnel with real-life medical simulation products to validate clinical techniques and provide access to a simulation environment prior to a live patient setting. 

Eastern Health has entered into a partnership with PolyUnity which will see collaboration on new designs that will maximize design introduction to a healthcare setting and enhance success of new and existing products. The partnership will result in royalty payments to Eastern Health and access to 3D models designed through the collaboration at a reduced cost. In return, Eastern Health will provide PolyUnity with technology support and space to implement 3D printing model design and operations.   


Cancer Screening Program (Health Connect)

Eastern Health is consolidating the three cancer screening programs (breast, cervical and colorectal) and has proceeded with the design and development of a comprehensive screening database that will allow each screening program to run their own individual screening campaigns, while sharing the same underlying screening Information Technology infrastructure. 

Eastern Health is partnering with the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information, Deloitte and MOBIA Technology Innovations to enhance cancer screening processes using Deloitte’s Health Connect platform.

The project is a modernized software solution that will enhance cancer screening management, consolidate various screening programs, expand analytics and insights, and improve targeted citizen communication to increase early detection rates.  

Health Connect as a cancer screening management platform can be the first step in a multi-phase approach to innovation investments to improve health outcomes. Health Connect is also a broader care management platform that provides an end-to-end solution to address various points along the cancer journey – both for patients and health service providers – and can leverage other analytic components to become a full enterprise health platform. 


Diabetes Management

Eastern Health is working with Medtronic to develop an enhanced solution for diabetes management which will improve client’s ability to adhere to their treatment as well as building their knowledge of diabetes. It will also help improve glucose control, client and clinician satisfaction, health care access, sustainability and overall improvement in population health.   

Medtronic will support the co-design and implementation of a standardized diabetes care pathway for a cohort of patients in the St. Mary’s and Placentia Bay catchment areas which will be phase onePhase two will explore the regional rollout of this pathway throughout Eastern Health following an evaluation of phase one. This evaluation will include a determination on whether additional components may need to be added to ensure the success and sustainability of the program in providing better outcomes. 


Phlebotomy Scheduling

Eastern Health has worked with MOBIA and Swiftqueue Technologies Limited, an Ireland-based start-up, to deliver a patient–focused service to improve blood collection, or phlebotomy, services that not only provides a high-quality laboratory result but respects patients’ valuable time.

This solution manages and matches phlebotomy demand to capacity while offering more patient empowerment for scheduling phlebotomy services. This is a pilot project for Major’s Path blood collection clinic; the success of the pilot project will determine implementation for other blood collection areas and scaling the solution provincially.


SurgeCon: An Emergency Department Surge Management Platform

SurgeCon: An Emergency Department Surge Management PlatformEastern Health is working with Memorial University of Newfoundland, MOBIA Technology Innovations, and SurgeCon Innovations Inc. to refine an innovative software solution that utilizes a unique algorithm to calculate emergency department activity and patient load to predict and mitigate emergency department overcapacity. This automated system, developed at Carbonear General Hospital by Dr. Chris Patey and Paul Norman, RN, improves emergency department performance by reducing wait times for patients.   

This intelligent assessment tool will quantify and predict patient surge, improve departmental communication, help move patients through the emergency department and consequently, reduce overcrowding. The SurgeCon platform has also been awarded a $4.8 million grant from the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), the Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial Government, Eastern Health, Memorial University and the Trinity Conception Placentia Health Foundation to validate the SurgeCon platform for scale across a variety of emergency departments within Eastern Health.  Memorial University’s Faculty of Medicine and the primary investigator of the CIHR supported research initiative, Dr. Shabnam Asghari, have formed a team of researchers to carry out this research over the next four years. 

Learn more about this initiative on Eastern Health’s StoryLine blog, How a dynamic duo is transforming emergency care.