Physicians in the pilot projects and those selected in the first enrollment period are busy with the implementation process, and several practices are now live on their PITO-Qualified EMRs.
On July 21, the Minister of Health, local MLAs, Dr. Michael Golbey (co-chair of the PITO Steering Committee and a past president of the BCMA), and local media visited two of those practices in the South Okanagan to see how their EMR implementations are helping their practices. Dr. Harries in Penticton and Dr. Bannerman in Summerland each gave the group a demonstration of their EMR and talked about the benefits they have already seen for patient care.
There are also now live implementations in physician practices in Nelson and Oliver, and several more going live during August in Sechelt, Gibsons, Naramata, Langley, New Westminster, and Kelowna. As additional vendors go through conformance testing in September, there will be a number of additional implementations completing in all areas of the province including Victoria, Vancouver, Dawson Creek, Powell River, Fort Langley, Trail, Nanaimo, Sooke, Surrey, Hope, Saanichton, Salmon Arm, and Maple Ridge, just to name a few.
PITO conducted a mid-point evaluation with all of the PITO pilot project sites (practices in Nelson, Dawson Creek, Powell River, Nanaimo, and Fort Langley) and received very positive feedback on the process so far, and indication that the physicians felt that the implementation and transition support services would be of significant value for other physicians.