Director of Digital Health at Saskatchewan Health Authority Attributes Training to Success in Her Role in Clinical Informatics During the Pandemic

Lori Chartier, director of digital health for urban and tertiary services for the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) attributes the problem-solving skills and clinical background she gained at Saskatchewan Polytechnic as the foundation of success in rolling out new systems during the early stages of the pandemic.

Chartier, an alumni of the Diploma Nursing program, is responsible for the digital systems and clinical applications that are used by multi-discipline clinicians and clinical providers in the large hospitals across Saskatchewan. The Diploma Nursing Program ran until the launch of the Nursing Education Program of Saskatchewan in 1996.

Technology has played a key role in Saskatchewan in terms of how we've managed our pandemic response. Chartier says, “We had to put a new phone system and new software into our health line to manage the thousands of calls that we were getting from citizens about COVID-19 and how they could obtain testing.” Chartier adds, “We implemented a contact tracing software across the province and we moved our virtual care vision forward. I think we did five years of work in three months.”

The clinical background provided in the nursing program became an important asset applied to this day in the world of clinical informatics according to Chartier. She adds, “We have to have that understanding of what the impact of the technology and the systems that we are putting in place has on how a clinician does their work and how they make decisions, as well as how we can use the systems to ensure that we're doing our work more efficiently and more safely.” “The problem-solving skills learned through critical assessment and critical thinking modules in the diploma program taught me to really get to the root cause of a problem before you dove in with a solution. I’ve applied those principles in my nursing careers and in my role in informatics today.”

https://polytechnicscanada.ca/resources/videos/lori-chartier/?fbclid=IwAR0sl4pGW9KQLlxEIr70FAzMGtqS_i2vkG4cJYSPdb1KmfH2JPEIQe-d4yk

February 2021