The Clinical & Systems Transformation (CST) project’s work is continuing – and reaching major milestones in the process.

Recently, CST’s Provider design team completed the design and review of all emergency department order sets. A provider is any healthcare professional licensed to prescribe or write an order, including physicians, midwives, nurse practitioners, clinical pharmacists and dentists. Emergency order sets make up 19 per cent of all order sets to be delivered by CST.

What’s an order set?

An order set is a group of bundled standard orderables (a healthcare provider’s instructions or directives to other healthcare workers regarding the treatment of a patient). These have been designed based on a condition, disease or procedure. For example, there are order sets for the treatment of sepsis, pneumonia and so on. The content of order sets can be modified or amended based on the needs of the specific patient.

There were 54 order sets in total for the emergency department.

Order sets are already in use across VCH, PHSA and PHC, mainly in the form of pre-printed orders. CST is standardizing order sets across the three organizations and implementing computerized provider order entry to improve accuracy, decrease adverse events and ensure that patients receive consistent, evidence-based care. Learn more about computerized provider order entry.

Key milestone

Dr. Dave Pledger, emergency room physician at Vancouver General Hospital, emphasizes the importance of this accomplishment.

“The order sets are comprehensive and serve to minimize errors of omission or dosing errors in the chaotic environment of the emergency department,” he says. “It allows for the rapid initiation of appropriate care with a single computer entry.”

This means improved efficiency and productivity for care teams.

Dr. Pledger worked with Dr. Eric Grafstein, CST’s Chief Medical Information Officer for VCH and PHC, to develop the adult emergency department order sets. Dr. Simi Khangura was the Subject Matter Expert Lead for the pediatric emergency department order sets.

Other contributors to this milestone include subject matter experts from VCH, PHSA and PHC, and the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committees.

Next steps

The order sets are currently going through content approvals.

“This has been a huge feat and I’d like to thank everyone on our team for their hard work, patience and dedication since January,” says Isabel Diogo, Provider Team Manager. “A special thanks to our colleagues, both our subject matter experts in VCH, PHSA and PHC who helped us develop these order sets, and the Children’s & Women’s and Regional Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committees who have worked with us to approve the clinical content.”

“This is a true example of exceptional work and collaboration by an amazing team – way to go!”

What is CST?

Clinical & Systems Transformation (CST) is a joint undertaking between VCH, PHSA and PHC to complete a significant transformation of clinical practices and systems. Learn more at CSTproject.ca.