One year in , project is keeping patient records regionally connected | Kingston / Frontenac This Week

kingstonthisweek.com · Feb 20, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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Supplied photoThe change may not be immediately apparent to people accessing health care in southeastern Ontario, but the implementation of a new multi-centre health record-keeping system has been humming along in the background since December 2024 with the aim of keep patient records streamlined, unified and integrated across the region.On Dec. 7 of that year, six organizations officially launched Lumeo, a health information system that connects health-care providers at 33 regional sites that provide health care for more than 650,000 patients.Recommended VideosThe system was built by Oracle Health, a producer of health information technology platforms and services based in the U.S.According to the Frontenac Lennox & Addington Ontario Health Team, while other similar systems are being utilized across Canada, Lumeo “stands out for its scale” and the commitment and collaboration demonstrated by the organizations who have worked together to make it happen.Those organizations include Providence Care, Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC), Lennox and Addington County General Hospital (LACGH), Brockville General Hospital, Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital and Quinte Health.It’s a shift that’s been a long time coming, says Leon Goonaratne, the regional vice-president of digital health systems at Lumeo Regional Health Information System.“We formed a partnership and decided years ago that we would implement a single regional health information system that would essentially connect all of these sites with one solution that would drive workflows and capture all of the records for patients in the region,” Goonaratne told the Whig-Standard this week.Like most health-care organizations, southeastern Ontario’s hospitals and clinics had individual health information systems, Goonaratne explained.“It caused a lot of challenges, especially in the region that we have where patients are constantly moving from site to site,” He said. “Patients would have to print out their information, or they’d get faxed from site to site. There was lots of paper, lots of follow-up and lots of just tracing and tracking and chasing information via paper.”Now, clinicians can see a patient’s full medical history across the region.“From a care perspective, it’s significant,” Goonaratne said.Dr. Siddhartha Srivastava agrees. He’s a general internal medicine physician with Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC), and an associate professor at Queen’s University.Srivastava is the physician co-lead for Lumeo’s implementation in the region. He underscored the importance of sharing information across formerly fragmented hospital systems.“Having an integrated view of the information in a patient’s chart is critically important to provide a good, high-quality care,” Srivastava said. “This is one chart for one patient, instead of six different charts for the same patient across six organizations. That’s where we actually realize the gains.”Still, the transition came with its own challenges. Launching a new platform across 33 sites simultaneously, at 6:43 a.m. on Dec. 7, 2024, was described by the FLA-OHT as “ambitious,” and involved rigorous preparation, including three rounds of testing that simulated 21 patient scenarios through 45,000 workflow steps.“These transitions can be hard,” Goonaratne admitted. “It’s a lot of learning new systems, new workflows, new ways to do things that they were used to doing differently yesterday, last week, or a month ago. It can be quite challenging from a frontline perspective.”But the past 13 months have seen staff adopt the new technology successfully, thanks to a plan to provide support as needed.“As a clinician, we don’t want anything impacting our ability to deliver care,” Srivastava said. “I would say all our organizations came together and provided support for all the clinicians that were working during that time frame.”Lumeo has been in the “stabilization phase,” while clinicians work to retrain their data input workflows. Patients may still see notices in hospitals asking for patience as staff continue getting more comfortable implementing the new system.Now, Lumeo is on the cusp of the next phase: optimization.This phase will include a pilot to test the use of Oracle’s clinical artificial intelligence agent, an AI-powered note-taker that helps physicians chart patient visits in real-time.KHSC received a Health Care Unburdened grant from the Canadian Medical Association to study how AI might help doctors lessen their administrative burden while taking electronic health records.As part of the announcement of that grant, Srivastava said that AI may be able to help doctors “work smarter, not harder” and thus prevent the migration of doctors away from practicing medicine.The generative AI tool will record conversations between a patient and a doctor and then create a draft document for the doctor to review, edit and then sign off.“The key benefit we hope to achieve out of this is to actually look at the impact of using the scribes on productivity for physicians, efficiency in clinics and care settings, and workplace satisfaction for the physicians as well as the patient experience,” Srivastava said.“This is something that hasn’t really broken ground a lot in the health-care space, so it’s going to be very interesting for us. What is the long-term sustainability and feasibility of using AI solutions in health care?” Health-care teams, including nurses at Kingston Health Sciences Centre, have been working with the new Lumeo health information system since December 2024 as part of a project to share medical information between southeastern Ontario hospitals to improve patient care. Supplied photoLumeo is also now rolling out an online patient portal, called My Health Record, so that patients can easily access their own medical records through their phone or computer.It’s a way to let patients have a say in their medical records, as well, Goonaratne said.“From an empowerment perspective…people can look at their own records, be informed of the information that’s being passed around, and if there are errors there then we can be informed and we can actually correct them,” he said. “It’s the empowerment that this provides to patients, as far as managing their own health care.”Goonaratne said that Lumeo continues to be “a journey.”“We’re at the initial steps of this journey, and I think we’ve made some really significant changes to improve care across our sites in the region,” he said. “Things are only going to get better.”Srivastava reiterated the purpose of the journey.“We wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t for this group of people that we are here to serve,” he said. “We’re hoping that they see the benefits of that. They’re seeing it now, and hopefully they will see that improve as time continues.”mbalogh@postmedia.com Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.