Project Details
About the Project
As an Emergency Medicine Resident, Dr. Hilary Drake has worked in many different settings over the past few years. This has given her insight into different ways to support patients’ desire for education and resources about their conditions. This is particularly needed after a patient is discharged, when they seek additional information about their presenting complaint and may not have a Family Physician.
In an effort to support this need in Victoria, Dr. Drake and Dr. Fred Voon, along with their colleagues in Emergency Medicine Dr. Ali Tafti and Dr. Gina Gill, embarked upon a project to connect patients and their families with curated, evidence-based, locally-relevant resources. Rather than launch a separate platform that would be difficult to sustain over time, they worked with colleagues at Emergency Care BC, Pathways BC, and HealthLink BC, to generate lists, posters, and business cards to connect patients with good quality digital resources.
Along the way, they recognized that nothing replaces a healthcare provider giving good quality resources during a health visit, and thought carefully about how to lower the barriers to accessing this information, both for patients and for those in the clinical team. They made a QR code prominently displayed on a poster to enable patients to access information about their condition while they waited to see a physician. Says Dr. Voon, “Patients are always primed to wonder what is going on with them, so this gives them something to begin with.” Once the visit is complete, Emergency Room physicians can either write the diagnosis on the business card with the QR code link, or print off relevant resources for those who may not have access to a phone or computer.
Further work could be done in the future to connect patients with health information, says Dr. Voon. “A dream scenario would be a ‘discharge navigator’ in the emergency room. Someone who goes over the labs with the patient, makes sure they have the right information printed out and understood before they leave.” In the meantime, though, “these resources are one more tool to help.”
The link to the resources can be found here: Pathways | * Victoria Emergency Department Patient Information (pathwaysbc.ca)