Admissions from newly launched Continuing Care sites

The admission workflow involving patients coming from launching Continuing Care facilities to Acute Care and the Emergency Department will change. Prior to Launch 9, patients arrived with paper MARs as their home medication lists. This information was entered into the Connect Care BPMH. After Launch 9, you may encounter different scenarios when admitting patients from: 

• Continuing Care sites with an AHS pharmacy (Capital Care patients excluding those in CHOICE inpatient beds) – There will be no paper MAR. There also is no BPMH as their home medications are their active encounter medications. This list can be found in the Admission navigator under the "Restart from previous encounter" section. A tipsheet explaining this process can be found here.  

• Continuing Care sites with external pharmacy (Covenant, North Zone), and facilities not on Connect Care - Will continue to have a paper MAR sent with them. This is the source of truth and should be used to update their BPMH. This is unchanged from pre-launch.  

Discharges to Continuing Care 

All discharges to Continuing Care sites should happen in the IFT section of the Discharge Navigator, or the Disposition Tab for Emergency Departments. The navigator will know whether the facility has an AHS or community pharmacy, and will provide the correct tools for this process.

• When sending to a site with an AHS pharmacy, you will receive options to complete the IFT Orders as using the same process when transferring to acute care facilities on Connect Care. 

  • • Tip: IFT from ED to Continuing Care with AHS Pharmacy 

• When sending to a site with an external/contracted pharmacy or a facility not on Connect Care, the navigator options will reflect this by providing options to complete a DSL/LTC transfer. 

  • • Tip: IFT from ED to Continuing Care with External Pharmacy

The "Disposition" field in the Discharge order is required to be documented upon actual discharge. Previously, if the wrong disposition was selected it created issues with printing the appropriate discharge/transfer documents (i.e., AVS), which impacted discharging the patient in a timely manner.

To simplify the selection process and prevent issues from occurring, as of October 30, all transfer dispositions will be removed from the disposition picklist (dropdown menu accessed via the magnifying glass icon in the search field) and replaced with one transfer disposition called "Transfer to Another Facility". This new disposition should be used for ALL interfacility transfers (IFTs) to other hospitals including rehab, mental health, long-term care/Continuing Care, acute care and correctional health locations. The actual destination type and destination location will be captured in the Discharge Form (by unit clerk or nursing) upon actual discharge. The new disposition is also available as a new speed button, to the right of the search field (click here to see screenshot). 

All other discharge dispositions (e.g., for patients who have died, left without discharge, AMH dispositions, and patients dismissed from the ED that have not been admitted) have also been simplified, and remain available in the disposition dropdown menu.

Connect Care Launch 9 includes several Population and Public Health (PPH) Programs, including Health Link (811). 

• Health Link: 

  • • The following Health Link programs will now have orders and documentation available in Connect Care:

      • • Health Link Virtual MD - see the Quick Start Guide

        • Health Link Outpatient Covid Treatment Program (OCTP) - see the Quick Start Guide

        • Health Link HIV PEP Follow Up - see the Quick Start Guide

    • A new internal "Ambulatory Referral to Health Link" order is available. This referral can be used when referring to the following departments: 

      • • Alberta Quits

        • Outpatient COVID Treatment Program (OCTP)

        • Dementia Advice Line

        • HIV Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) Follow Up 

Previously, an external referral was required for Alberta Quits and Outpatient Covid Treatment Program (OCTP). 

"Ambulatory Referral to Public Health Communicable Disease (aka BBFE)" should still be used for referrals to CDC, when HIV PEP is not indicated. 

• For more information on other PPH changes, see the PPH Information package, particularly:

  • • Slide 5: Overview of Public Health referral orders.

    • Slide 13: Contact info for urgent/after-hours calls to the Medical Officer of Health (MOH)

    • Slide 15: Info for referring non-occupational blood and body fluid exposures (BBFE) to Public Health.