Advancing cardiology care with the Care Coordination Centre

With the support of Nova Scotia Health’s new Care Coordination Centre (C3), it is now easier for healthcare teams to connect patients with the cardiology team at the QEII Health Sciences Centre for essential care and help them safely return to their home community as soon as possible.

Every year, thousands of patients travel from hospitals around the province to the QEII for specialized cardiology care procedures. This often includes having a cardiac catheterization procedure, which allows doctors to map out the blood supply to the heart muscle and find or address any blockages in that blood supply. 

Patients and their families can take comfort in knowing that Nova Scotia Health uses advanced technology to support timely access to this vital care. 

“We are using innovative technology to guide care, with a focus on connecting care to change lives,” explained Chad Nippard, provincial manager of access and flow.

C3 plays a key role in enhancing efficiency across the province, ensuring smoother transitions and more effective care delivery. C3 is the central hub for managing patient flow within the Nova Scotia healthcare system. It pulls information and data from many different sources to help give teams a full picture of all patients in hospital, the tests and procedures they are waiting to have, their expected discharge date, any specialized needs and more.

C3 software uses a system of “tiles” to display and manage important healthcare data. A tile is like a digital app that holds patient data. Healthcare providers can access this data through technology, which provides a high-level view of each patient's healthcare journey. Teams can customize the information they want to view by creating profiles. Profiles can organize patient information in a way that best suits the needs of a specific unit, department or provider.

The C3 team carefully manages and monitors each tile and profile to ensure Nova Scotians move through the system in a timely manner.

“We want to provide the best care for patients and our C3 team will keep working with other healthcare staff to evolve the tools to meet their needs,” says Chad. 

Eliza Cochrane, a cardiovascular coordinator with the Integrated and Acute and Episodic Care Network working in Northern Nova Scotia, wanted to explore how the system could help better support the movement of patients from their home hospitals to the Cardiac Catheterization Lab in Halifax. The C3 team responded. 

Last summer, the C3 team worked closely with Eliza, her cardiovascular health coordinator colleagues and cardiology bed flow managers at the QEII to create the new Peripheral Cath Profile. It tracks patients who are awaiting this specialized procedure, allowing teams from across the province to communicate and stay up to date on each patient’s status on the waitlist. 

“The profile is user-friendly and has streamlined communication between referring sites and the Cardiology Catheterization Lab,” she says.

“By allowing us to work together, the C3 helps us support patients through their healthcare journey with greater ease to ensure they receive the tests they need as quickly as possible.”

Photo of Eliza Cochrane, cardiovascular coordinator.