A family from Ostrea Lake, N.S., says they are concerned the province is expanding a new electronic medical records system this weekend when they still don’t know if it contributed to the death of their unborn baby.
However, the CEO of the IWK Health Centre in Halifax says there have been no serious patient harms since the records system was launched at the children’s hospital in December.
Cassidy Horne was just four weeks away from her due date when her daughter, Arabella, died in January.
For a month leading up to her loss, Horne and her doctor were worried that the baby had stopped growing.
Her doctor sent in at least two referrals to the IWK for an ultrasound, but the family says they were told by hospital staff that the referrals were lost during the switchover to the new system that launched in December at the IWK Health Centre.
By the time Horne had an ultrasound in January — at 36 weeks pregnant — the family found out the baby had died the day before, with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.
The IWK Health Centre was the first hospital in the province to switch over to the new $365-million One Person, One Record (OPOR) system, which merges more than 80 different current workflows for patient information into one. Everything from blood work records to food service requests will run through the program when it’s fully implemented across the province.
On Saturday, the new system will roll out to all hospitals in the province’s central zone, which includes the Halifax area, the Eastern Shore and West Hants.
Horne said she feels it’s important to know exactly what happened to her ultrasound records to have closure and know who should be held accountable.
“It makes me think that they knew something was going to happen, something bad was going to happen, and they didn’t inform their patients because they didn’t want to scare them,” she said.
After Horne’s daughter died, Health Minister Michelle Thompson promised an investigation into her loss. The family was interviewed by the hospital shortly after speaking to CBC News in March, but says they haven’t heard anything since.
“They say that they’re trying to take preventative measures and keep this from happening to anyone else, but I have yet to see any actual physical proof of them trying to prevent it,” Horne said.
Last week, the province’s largest union also called for Nova Scotia Health to delay the expansion of the OPOR system.
The NSGEU released a survey from 260 workers at the IWK, saying they’re still worried about the safety of their patients. Of those surveyed, 58 health-care workers reported direct harm to patients and 188 reported delays in patient care.
CBC has obtained a letter through a freedom of information request written by a physician who works at the IWK to the health minister and Karen Oldfield, the CEO of Nova Scotia Health.
The doctor’s identity is redacted in the documents. The letter, which was sent two days before Horne’s baby died, said a number of requisitions for prenatal ultrasounds had been lost.
“Many patients had ultrasounds completed later than recommended due to these systemic failures,” the doctor wrote. “This is not acceptable.”
Janet Hazelton, president of the Nova Scotia Nurses’ Union (NSNU), said her members also have concerns about the system but she feels they’re being addressed as best as possible.
Hazelton said the first four to six weeks at the IWK after the transition were “really concerning,” but she said there has been “a tremendous amount of positive progress” since then. Her union represents nurses at the hospital.
Holly Horne, Cassidy’s mother, said the IWK should have informed the public that records had gone missing.
“It’s very frustrating to know that they knew something was going on, and they didn’t do anything to prevent that from happening,” she said.
“For them not to mention anything to us about that, knowing that these were getting lost. Why couldn’t they just take a piece of paper and write it down and take it to the ultrasound?”
During an interview about OPOR implementation, Dr. Krista Jangaard, president and CEO at the IWK Health Centre, said she’s not aware of the status of the investigation into the loss of Horne’s baby.
She said she could not speak directly about the case, or any other patient scenarios at the hospital, because of confidentiality laws.
“Do I believe there have been any significant patient harms over the last five months? No,” she said.
When asked if there were any deaths connected to OPOR, Jangaard reiterated her response: “No.”
When asked why the IWK didn’t start a public awareness campaign after records were lost, she said she wasn’t sure. But Jangaard pointed out that there was extensive internal messaging, including information on the hospital’s website, and clinics were keeping patients up to date.
“We do know that some documentation was not easily available to be found or misdirected. Those things have been changed and fixed.”
The Horne family said they will continue to speak out in an effort to make the public aware of what is at stake.
“There’s so many reasons why people should be worried about this new system. They don’t have any real answer for us yet so how many more records are being lost, how many more people, children, women are suffering because of this?” Holly Horne said.
“My granddaughter should be here with us right now.”
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