COVID-19 Connect Care Workflows
Clinicians caring for patients with COVID-19 can take advantage of Connect Care clinical content that facilitates care of patients with COVID-19 illness. This section introduces that content through the lens of common clinical workflows.
Please see the COVID-19 Content page for more information about testing, assessment, treatment guidance, order sets, documentation and other supports specifically designed for COVID-19 care. A COVID-19 Resources page gathers links to clinical guidance and protocols.
This section highlights workflow tasks common to any care context (inpatient. Other sections focus on inpatient, emergency, critical care and outpatient contexts.
COVID-19 Diagnoses and Problems
A number of Connect Care ordering and documentation tools come to the foreground within chart review, ordering and documenting workflows when Connect Care "knows" that a patient's care includes COVID-19 related issues. The most important action a clinician can take is to ensure that COVID-19 appears on a patient's problem list. Problems can reflect acute COVID-19 illnesses (e.g., COVID-19 pneumonia, COVID-19 encephalopathy), complications of acute illness, as well as a wide range of post-COVID-19 syndromes.
Standardized COVID-19 terminology is built-in to Connect Care, with updates as new conditions emerge. Busy clinicians may find the number of available terms overwhelming. While it is sufficient to enter "COVID-19" as a problem in order to take advantage of problem-triggered decision and documentation supports, prescribers may want to build a personal list of a small number of favourite COVID-19 terms.
Problem Overviews
As soon as a COVID-19 related problem is added or activated in a patient's problem list, a link becomes available just below the overview edit box ("Problem Overview Data - COVID-19"). This is used to edit structured data for a standardized problem overview.
The associated interactive text block (".COVIDOVERVIEW" SmartPhrase) can be inserted into the Problem Overview edit box. It can also be added to progress or summative documentation as easy-to-read text. Behind the text is the structured data representing the minimum information needed to characterize a COVID-19 illness. The text block is dynamic. It has a subtitles and keywords, highlighted in a dark blue font, which can be clicked to re-expose the data form for edits or additions.
COVID-19 Infection Status
Clinicians seeing patients who are ill because of, or with, COVID-19 infection may benefit from Connect Care personalizations that can speed access to test ordering, results and disease markers.
Ordering COVID-19 Tests
Reviewing Test Results
Documenting COVID-19 Status
Connect Care COVID-19 documentation tools include a text block that gathers information related to test results, serology and immunization events. This appears in the COVID-19 Sidebar as well as within COVID-19 documentation templates and can be inserted into any documentation (or personalization) using ".COVIDSTATUS".
COVID-19 Immunization
Immunization Status
COVID-19 vaccination status is important to document, as it affects a number of other COVID-19 workflows. Finding immunization records, and documenting where gaps need to be filled, matches workflows for other vaccination types. There are a few unique considerations for COVID-19 immunizations:
Most COVID-19 vaccinations administered in Alberta will appear in Netcare before appearing weeks later in Connect Care (delays are decreasing).
Vaccinations administered outside Alberta, and some within-Alberta administrations, are recorded only if formally validated using an online self-serve tool for Albertans. Persons without an Alberta Health Care card are not able to use this validation pathway.
Connect Care emergency workflows use a screening questionnaire that includes checking self-reported COVID-19 immunization status. This information can help identify persons whose information is not yet entered to Netcare or Connect care. Self-reported status is defined as follows:
"None" - patient reports that no COVID-19 immunization of any type has been received at any time, or is within 14 days of receiving a first dose.
"Partial" - patient reports at least one COVID-19 immunization but not all doses required for a complete series. The definition of a complete series differs by vaccine type (e.g., one dose for "Johnson & Johnson" vaccine type, 2 doses for other vaccine types and 2 or 3 doses where a booster is required in addition to a basic vaccine series).
"Full" - patient reports receiving all doses required for a particular vaccine and patient risk group (1 or 2 plus possible booster requirement).
"Unknown" - patient declines or is otherwise unable to report prior immunizations.
Finding Immunization Information
COVID-19 immunization records can be reviewed in the "Immunizations" tab of Netcare, which is most up-to-date. Immunization records also get interfaced to (and/or manually entered) to Connect Care and can be reviewed in the "Immunizations" activity within an opened patient chart. The workflows are the same as for all other immunizations.
Documenting Immunizations
Connect Care COVID-19 documentation tools include a text block that organizes information related to immunization events. This appears in the COVID-19 Sidebar as well as within COVID-19 documentation templates. In addition, it can be inserted into any documentation (or personalization) using the ".COVIDSTATUS" mnemonic.
COVID-19 Sidebar
An inpatient "Sidebar" is available (default right side of screen) within any patient chart opened to an inpatient or emergency context. This has a standardized index of links to alternate Sidebar views that can be selected. Upon selecting the "Notes & Reports" index item (bottom of left column), note a "COVID-19" row within an "Other Sidebar Reports". This has a link for two COVID-19 Sidebar views, one attuned to inpatient acute care and another more relevant to patients who have had COVID-19 and may manifest complications or post-COVID-19 syndromes.