BHB shares update about hospital – physician communications

Tuesday 2 April 2024: Bermuda Hospitals Board has had a physician advisory council to participate in the ongoing development of our electronic medical record, PEARL, for over a year. Community and BHB physicians are represented to collaborate on optimising our ability to share highly confidential medical information about our patients.  The public should be reassured that BHB only uses secure methods of transmitting their medical information.

Communicating with physicians via private emails and fax does not constitute the highest level of safeguarding patient data. As we work through making improvements, we have continued faxing to community physician offices so there has been no cut off of available patient information through older systems.  Faxing is not perfect, however. There can be issues with transmission, or risks of paper running out at the receiver end or getting lost in the community offices. This is why their use is being phased out in other countries such as the UK.

Email and messaging can be used if they are on secure platforms. Many family doctors now have their own electronic medical records and we are already in the early stages of implementing an integration engine that will allow the different EMRs in these offices to connect more directly with PEARL.

BHB has also hosted two community physician workshops over the last year to assist them with using BHB systems and PEARL. We certainly want to hear from any physicians who are having issues receiving or sharing information with us at BHB. We already are in contact with certain offices and site visits are arranged if there are issues that can’t be resolved remotely. Prior to the question being tabled to the CEO at Docs for Dinner, BHB was aware of the particular concern voiced and our team had committed to support with a solution.

The requirements of the personal information privacy act do need to be complied with and this is a good thing for Bermuda. Within health care, an individual’s medical information should always be protected to the highest standards available. The onus is on us in health care – in the hospitals and community – to work together and find solutions that safeguard medical information while making it as easy as possible for physicians to care for their patients.

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