The current state of inpatient consult orders in Connect Care has every consult order available in every facility in the province, even if the service is not provided in that facility. The onus is currently on the user to know whether the service is available through use of a consult order. The Consult Order Optimization Project seeks to ensure that inpatient consult orders only exist in facilities where that service is provided using the consult order process.
- Where a consult order does not exist within a facility:
- For non-urgent consults or those for telephone advice only, consider calling/paging directly using the Regional On-Call Application (ROCA) or local call schedule information.
- For urgent consults or for patients requiring inter-facility acceptance/transfer, use the Connect Care RAAPID Service Request Order. No phone calls are required, unless the patient condition changes.
- For hyper-emergent situations requiring the most expeditious consult or transport, call RAAPID by phone directly (do not use Connect Care RAAPID Service Request Order).
- Site-based consult orders will streamline the applicable orders by site:
- Empowering ordering users to better understand which services their site receives through the consult order process.
- Enabling consulting service provider(s) to manage consult lists appropriate to locations where the service is provided.
- Ensuring orders are not inappropriately placed, where they could end up in unmonitored work queues and therefore be a patient care and/or patient safety issue.
The changes will go live according to the following schedule, affecting the orders listed in the zonal PowerPoint presentations linked at the end of this post. A reminder blog post will be published ahead of each phase (note: the lists of affected orders may change, updated lists will be included in the subsequent blog posts).
- July 16: Adult Surgical (22 orders)
- July 30: Pediatric Surgical (19 orders)
- Aug 13: Pediatric Medical (24 orders)
- Aug 27: Adult Medical, part 1 (23 orders)
- Sep 10: Adult Medical, part 2, and Critical Care (23 orders)
If you detect any errors in the list of affected orders (i.e., a missing order or an order present that should not be), please submit a ticket or call Help Desk 1-877-311-4300. Please specify which consult order and whether you are the consultant that responds to that consult order or the attending, ED physician or other clinician requesting that service for your patient.
Consult Order Workflow Changes
A secondary benefit of the Consult Order Optimization project is that the provider care team field will no longer be required to distinguish between two different services (distinct groups of individual consultants) attempting to share a single consult order. Please alert the Connect Care team through a ticket if your service has been relying on the provider care team to allow two distinct groups of consultants to share a single consult order so that a net new consult order can be built for your facility.
- For attendings entering consult orders: The provider care team field in the inpatient consult order should be left blank and will be removed from consult orders in the future.
- For consultants: Prior to ‘completing’ your consult, attach your provider care team to the patient’s Current Encounter Care Team for patients that should be part of your provider care team list.
Additional resources:
- List of affected orders, by zone:
- Presentation: Consult Order Optimization - North Zone
- Presentation: Consult Order Optimization - Edmonton Zone
- Presentation: Consult Order Optimization - Central Zone
- Presentation: Consult Order Optimization - Calgary Zone
- Presentation: Consult Order Optimization - South Zone
- Manual: Consultation Workflows
- Tip: Inpatient Consult Orders
- Tip: Inpatient Consult Fulfillment
- Manual: Patient Lists