colleges & Associations
Emergency Health Services
- College of Paramedics Registration Database System
Customer Profile
Emergency Health Services (EHS) of Nova Scotia, a division of the Department of Health, is responsible for the continual development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of pre-hospital emergency medical services in the province. Striving to be the centre of excellence in emergency health services, EHS assures best practices through regulation, prevention, education, and research. The EHS has gone through some significant transformations over recent years, such as attaining a new fleet of ambulances and staffing them with registered paramedics. Furthermore, a training and simulation centre was created; one that provides health professionals with realistic and challenging educational opportunities that sharpen skills, enhance knowledge and improve patient care. Currently responsible for registering and re-registering paramedics in Nova Scotia, EHS is also in the process of establishing the new College of Paramedics of Nova Scotia (CPNS). Subsequently, the CPNS will become responsible for the registration process.
Business Situation
Since the CPNS is not yet in operation, EHS paramedics and former Nova Scotia College of Paramedics executives are working cooperatively to develop policies, practices and draft regulations to submit to the Nova Scotia government for approval. The EHS is hoping to have this accomplished by early 2008. In order for everything to come together, the EHS understood that they would have to somehow combine all the existing active paramedics' information from their old system and integrate it into a new sustainable emergency system that met all their new requirements. Their old system did not keep any historical information, so old information was overwritten with each re-registration. Also, it would have required a lot of external system maintenance for new requirements or certifications to be implemented. Re-registration of paramedics is currently due every two years and there is no cost to the paramedic. Paramedics are responsible for sending the registrar the required documentation to receive their certification which allows them to work in Nova Scotia. This process requires a lot of work by the registrar to determine if all the requirements have been fulfilled by the paramedic. Furthermore, the new requirements will be quite different than what is currently required for certification.
Solution
Once the CPNS begins operations, there will be new requirements for the certification of paramedics. The new rules will only apply to new and re-registrants. Nicom was appointed to develop the College of Paramedics Registration Database System. One of the main requirements of the new system was that it be online to enable paramedics to log in and maintain their own information. The new system has replaced their existing application, and allows for the addition of the new certification requirements. With the help of Nicom, everyone will be registered under these new requirements within two years of the College opening.
Nicom IT Solutions not only built the Registration Database System, but the College of Paramedics website to go along with it!
Benefits
The enhancements, made possible by Nicom, decrease the amount of work required by the registrar giving paramedics access to their information. Additional functionality has been built into the new system that allows users to log data changes, and the College to keep track of user activity and applicants, maintain historical data, and print ID cards. Furthermore, the new system allows for many types of reports to be readily available. Nicom has taken the necessary steps to ensure that this has been a smooth transition for EHS.