Projects
Digitizing vaccination records and clinic workflow
Annual influenza immunization clinics play a crucial role in a hospital’s battle against the contraction and spread of infectious diseases. With COVID-19, we had to rethink how we delivered our flu vaccinations and store staff records. Our team recognized that a digital health platform would eliminate analog inefficiencies, allowing for more vaccination appointments per hour and increase access for immunizations. Leveraging a digital health platform would save staffing costs, ideally increase vaccination rates, and allow Occupational Health & Safety to both digitize vaccination records and embark on a digital transformation for the department.
We partnered with CANImmunize, an Ottawa-based national leader in vaccination record keeping, to develop a digital vaccination campaign platform. As a result, we were able to offer and provide streamlined vaccination appointments to staff, staff family members, and patients of the Family Health Team clinic. The digital platform was able to help us save time per vaccination which will establish a proposed reduction in clinic hours by 20% going forward, resulting in a 20% reduction in clinic staff costs. Occupational Health & Safety now automatically has the flu data uploaded into employees’ immunization records and our employees have independent access to their digital flu vaccination record. CANImmunize was able to leverage the vaccination platform developed at Bruyère to become the dedicated platform for the COVID-19 vaccine in Nova Scotia and the Yukon.
Lead Investor(s):
In just one seasonal flu campaign:
2213
Vaccinations completed
1286
Appointments booked
122
Staff subscriptions to CANImmunize
115000
Industry-dollars leveraged
Enhancing patient outcomes with hearing technology
Undiagnosed hearing loss is a ubiquitous issue that leads to serious social and health consequences for affected individuals. Bruyère primarily serves older individuals (ages 70-79) where 93% experience hearing loss. Our team recognized that untreated hearing loss could be preventing patients from understanding and complying with medical direction provided by their health team, ultimately contributing to negative health outcomes and comorbidities. Outcomes could be as severe as falls and other injuries, decreased quality of life, cognitive decline, or comorbid conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. We set out to understand how providing objective hearing screening upon admission could improve patient care and empower patients to address their hearing loss.
In response, we partnered with SHOEBOX Audiometry, a Canadian company in the heart of Ottawa, and piloted the SHOEBOX QuickTest to provide a simple, accurate, and objective hearing screening test that could be completed in less than two minutes. Over a two month period, the SHOEBOX QuickTest was administered to new admissions on our Geriatric Rehabilitation Inpatient Unit, and an overwhelming 74 of 75 patients screened had ‘Reduced’ or ‘Very Reduced’ hearing in at least one ear. The simple addition of a user-friendly digital health app has improved communication strategies between physicians and patients with hearing loss and is setting a new precedent for quality care in our patient population. Bruyère has since scaled the SHOEBOX QuickTest to three unique clinical settings, with plans to complete over 1000 hearing screenings per year.
Lead Investor(s):
Seventy-five inpatients to the geriatric rehabilitation unit were screened in a SHOEBOX QuickTest pilot.
Of those patients:
99
had reduced or very reduced hearing
77
had very reduced hearing
53
had unknown hearing loss
35
were surprised by their results
Within two-months, patient care was impacted through:
114
% increase in sharing outcomes with care teams
65
% increase in earwax checks
11
New referrals to audiologists
225000
Industry-dollars leveraged
Tackling exposure risk with streamlined digital screening
At the onset of COVID-19, Bruyère was faced with the challenge of staff and visitors intending to enter Bruyère’s multi-site hospital and long-term care homes as they normally would. The need to screen employees and visitors for COVID-19 symptoms when entering our facilities was an immediate priority in our response to the pandemic. Bruyère partnered with Macadamian, a global leader in digital health solutions based in the national capital region, to develop the HealthQ platform to screen employees with a set of clinical questions and a dedicated back end that sent failed screenings directly to Occupational Health & Safety for follow up.
The digital health app has been instrumental in reducing high-contact paper-based screening forms and addressing the resulting bottleneck at our doors. HealthQ has played a key role in keeping COVID-19 out of our facilities and actively protecting patients from COVID-19. Based on the work done at Bruyère, the HealthQ platform has been scaled to many other hospitals, long-term care homes, and industries around the globe. Today, HealthQ is running tens of thousands of people through daily COVID health attestations and playing a critical role in combatting COVID-19.
Lead Investor(s):
In the first year of the app’s deployment, HealthQ has translated to:
282000
Digital screenings
7000
Hours saved
5
Bruyère sites served
60