PEI’s eHealth system prints labels you hand deliver to the departments. It can look up your name too.

Sheet of printed labels for every visit

I was at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital yesterday for the annual checkup. I thought it would be great to see the new $75 million eHealth computer system in action.

Everyone has to go through admitting even for an outpatient appointment so I wheeled into the tiny room.

“Health card?” the admitting clerk asked.

“What if I forgot to bring it?” I asked back.

“I can look you up by first and last name,” she said proudly.

That’s progress. They have a patient master file working.

After a few more questions she asked “Do you have labels?”\

“Er no, not on me,” was my reply.

Quick as a flash she printed a sheet of labels. “Take these with you.”

“What are they for?”

She beamed and said “they replace the blue card.”

When I got the to department they took my labels and stuck three of them on some pieces of paper. The rest of the labels they put next to the sheet if labels I gave them last year.

So that’s the $75 million computer system. It has a patient master file and prints labels. In the department, they still use file folders and stick the labels on paper. My doctor had a file folder with notes, some typed and some handwritten.

That’s a lot of money – $75 million dollars worth – for a program that prints labels.

You know, I wish I was still in computer sales because there is a lot of money to be made selling label printing software to hospitals.