Pembroke Hospital going paperless

It's something you may not think twice about upon seeing, but paper is used almost everywhere at the Pembroke Regional Hospital.

The hospital has announced that over the next few years it will be going paperless; digitizing all of its forms and files to become completely electronic.

"It's something that we're a bit behind on in terms of evolution I would say as a hospital," says Sabine Mersmann, President and CEO of the Pembroke Hospital.

"We'll no longer have to write out things that will no longer be misread, could be misinterpreted on a piece of paper. This is electronic. When you use a computer, it is so much more clear."

The change is also aimed at improving communication and patient security.

Mersmann says this is the largest single investment the hospital will make to date. It will cost millions to purchase to the new hardware and software needed.

The hospital's chief of staff, Tom Hurley, says this will also save employees time from having to go to and from the printer multiple times throughout the day.

"It's literally every patient encounter now," Hurley tells CTV News.

"For example, our laboratory work is still mostly printed off, written reports on X-rays to provide some background of the pictures that are printed off, and, of course all the charting we do at the patient level is done by pen and paper."

"I've been waiting for a while now. I'm really excited about it," Hurley adds.

But while physicians may be anxiously awaiting the move to paperless work, it's a change many patients will have to get used to - many of whom live in the aging Ottawa Valley community.

"I don't mind it. I'd prefer not paperless," says Rachel Paquette, who was visiting the Pembroke Hospital from Deep River on Wednesday.

"My mother prefers not paperless, and I think there's a whole lot of other people that come to the hospital that would prefer not paperless."

Mersmann says patient data will become accessible online the moment they leave the hospital in the future through website portals. The programs they are looking to implement are also compatible with neighbouring hospitals for easy file transfers.

"Some patients are elderly so they're going to have to maybe rely on family members to help them with the computer or phone access."

"I'm getting used to this though," says Paquette, "it's the new way."