Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we are not changing the scope of programming within the new hospital, and we are not anticipating to see a decrease in the number of jobs. The nature of some of the jobs will certainly change as a result of this renewal. When you go into the new building, it is clear that it is laid out differently, that things are going to flow in a different way. There are going to be significant improvements to workflow, which is going to help increase the number of efficiency, which is going to allow more time to be spent on patient care. That will likely result in the re-description of some jobs, but not necessarily, and it is not intended to decrease the overall number of positions within that facility.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, that is good to know. Another question that often gets asked is: the new operator, how can we be assured that they will not go for what often gets termed as the "lowest-cost solution" and in making sure that we still get the best quality of service? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, in moving forward with the construction of this facility, the proponents will be responsible for a number of the functions on an ongoing basis within that hospital. That includes basically the maintenance of the building, which is sort of the HVAC systems, the building structure, elevators, sort of the structure of the building. They are also going to be taking on housekeeping, laundry and linen, security and surveillance, as well as catering. These are currently things that are provided by different contractors that are currently engaged with the existing Stanton facility.
In our agreement with the proponent, we do have standards and agreements in place articulating the quality and the expectations on their side as well as on our side. We will be maintaining and monitoring those things on a regular basis to ensure that we are getting quality laundry and linen, quality housekeeping, quality security, as well as quality catering. This has actually created an opportunity for us to work with our future partner in the delivering of things like catering to incorporate things like traditional foods and traditional menus.
It has created a lot of opportunity for us to do some things in a different way and really focus on the end results. We are excited by those opportunities, but of course, absolutely, without question, it will require constant monitoring to make sure that they are complying with the expectations of our agreements.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Sorry, Mr. Vanthuyne, your time is up, but if you would like, I could put you down on the list again. Next, we have Mr. Simpson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. On page 34 I see there is a mental health and addictions information system. It is a new project, and it is scheduled to be completed in 2021. I am assuming this is some sort of electronic database. Just to begin, if the Minister would not mind giving the House a description about what this information system is. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, currently when it comes to charting and whatnot around mental health issues faced by residents who are engaged in our facilities such as Stanton or our others, we are using paper forms at this point in time. We need to move away from paper.
There was a review done by an expert panel that indicated that we need to really move forward and have an electronic record system here to focus on this particular area. There are a number of options that we need to explore. We do have electronic medical records, and it is in this budget as well that we are rolling out. We are hoping to have that done shortly.
We are not 100 per cent sure whether that system will be able to incorporate this. It may. It certainly is a possibility, but we need to put something in place to make sure that we can accurately get that information into a system that is usable by practitioners in order to help provide a better degree of care to our residents who are struggling with mental health issues.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Simpson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This brings up a lot of issues. There are a lot of privacy issues. I know there must be a privacy impact assessment done as per the Health Information Act.
There are also issues with medical records, electronic record systems in the territory that I have encountered. There is a variety of them. There are different access points to these. I know that we have a lot of locums in Hay River, and sometimes they just do not happen to have the password to the medical record system that they need at the time when they are seeing a patient, and so the patient repeats all this information. The Minister has stated that this might be integrated into one of the existing or a new electronic record system.
I guess my question is: how integrated will this be? How easily accessible will it be for any practitioner in the territory who needs this information to get this information when they need it? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, for many years now we have been moving forward with the implementation of a single electronic medical record system here in the Northwest Territories. We are very close to having that done at a territorial level. All of the information, in, out, to, from, it all has to comply with our Health Information Act to make sure that patients' privacy is protected at all times, and we are monitoring on a regular basis to make sure that there are no breaches. When there are, we have mechanisms to make sure that people are notified appropriately and that their information is not public. People do have to have passwords to gain access to clients for whom they happen to be working.
When it comes to mental health information, we want to have a system that clearly works the same so that the information is an integrated system. We know that EMR might be able to do this, but it is going to require some significant customization if it is the tool that is chosen. If it is not the tool that is chosen, regardless of the tool that is chosen, we do have to make sure that it integrates well with EMR so that we are not duplicating input and duplicating information on a regular basis to make it easier for all practitioners so that they can be familiar with one system, understand that system, and regardless of where they go in the Northwest Territories, they are faced with the similar portal, similar system, so that it is easy to use. That does not obviously give everybody access to everybody. That is not how health information works. There are privacy limitations. There are passwords. It has to be somebody who you're involved with on a care basis.
Those are the types of things that are happening, and when it come to this one, we cannot tell you today whether we are going to be using EMR, but it is certainly one of the options. Everything that we do in this particular area is going to require significant work and customization to make it seamless.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Simpson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am wondering why we need a different system for mental health and addictions information. Why can it not just be compiled in the same database that we are currently using? Is this system going to be used to analyze trends? What exactly is the point of an additional system dedicated to just mental health and addictions? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Maybe I have not been as clear as I had intended. EMR might be the tool, but if EMR is the tool, then we will have to make some significant modifications and customizations to allow it to collect the data appropriate or consistent with the challenges people face around mental health.
What we need to do, and I think it is the appropriate thing to do, is to do some costing, do some planning, do some studying to determine which of the models, and right now, we are aware of at least nine options that are available to us. Three of them look feasible. We are going to continue to look at those three options and see which one is going to give us the best results for our patients, including tying in and working well with patient records, which is EMR.
It could end up easily being EMR, but we need to finish that work, and we need to get that done. It was a recommendation from the expert panel that was done a number of years ago that this is something that is important. We are hearing from the staff that they want it. It is going to help improve tracking and monitoring, but more importantly, it is going to help the patients because they will not have to continue to repeat their stories.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Simpson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Clearly this is in the early stages. Similar to my last question: is part of the plan to analyze trends and mental health and addiction across the territory and then use that information to plan appropriately for treatment, et cetera? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Minister Abernethy.
Any eHealth system that you use generates reports of things that you can analyze to help you make evidence-based decisions. Keeping in mind small jurisdictions, we may have to limit some of that information. If the numbers are small and could possibly identify, we will not use data with numbers that low.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Next we have Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I want to follow up on something that Mr. Elkin said. My understanding is that the hospital construction will be complete by the end of the year in 2018, and the move-in will happen six months later. I am wondering why it takes six months between the end of construction and the beginning of the move-in. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we plan cautiously when it comes to moving into these facilities. The building is going to be built. It is going to be completed by the proponent. We have to go in and test all the equipment, all the medical equipment, and make sure every line that provides or supplies oxygen or other medical gases works appropriately, make sure that every line is checked, every system is verified, and we need to make sure that we give ourselves the appropriate time to make sure that the building is meeting the technical and medical and clinical specifications and requirements. This is, I wouldn't suggest, abnormal; moving into Hay River as an example took a large number of months to make sure that everything was safe and functioning, and the same is going to be true for Norman Wells. We need time to get in and do the verification before we start moving staff and, more importantly, patients into those facilities.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.
Thank you for that response. At what point does the furniture go in there, and the rooms get set up, and all that sort of thing? Is that within this six months, or is that in addition to it? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we will have staff in the building doing mock runs of processes, mock runs of other things. Some of the structure, furniture, et cetera, will be moved in, but for warranty purposes we would obviously be looking at putting off or moving the substantial amount of the furniture until sort of the last minute in order to make sure that we have insurance coverage and we're not wasting warranty time or insurance time, warranty time on facilities that are sitting in an empty building.
It will progress in, and not all divisions or sections are going to move in at the same time. That would never work. We're going to phase a move-in, so different units at different times. The units that obviously have some crossover, we'll want to coordinate those so that we're moving them in in a coordinated, logical fashion. It will all be planned out, phased out, in light of demands in different units, staffing, equipment, when we want to move those types of things in.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The phased move-in, how long will that take? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister. Thank you, Minister. Mr. Elkin.
Thank you. The six-month period of operational readiness is, as the Minister mentioned, when we will phase in moving all the programs over, having the staff have the opportunity to run through the processes, having the equipment tested and set up, so that once we get to the targeted first-patient day, which will be, you know, around May or June of 2019, then we can actually then move the patients in; but the staff have to have a chance to run and function in the new facility to make sure everything works as designed, and then we can make any adjustments as needed before we actually move all the patients in.
All the various programs in the building will be moving in, as the Minister said, in phases, and they'll test this department and test that department and make sure that all the systems in the building are running correctly before we actually move any patients in.
Thank you. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm sorry, I don't think my question was clear. I appreciate the need to do the testing and so on, but once the first patient is moved in, how long will it take to move all the others in? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.
The intention is for that time period to be very short. Once we get -- say let's talk peds, as an example. We'll have the staff go in; they'll do some test runs in the area. They'll make sure everything's working, and they'll move of the stuff over. Once the first patient day happens, we will be moving over the rest of the material from the peds unit as quickly as possible. It could be a week, but we don't want to have an under-resourced peds unit at any given time. We do have to have some time, but those periods of time from first patient day to all the material in in each unit will be very short.
Thank you, Minister. For those listening at home, could you please define "peds?"
Certainly; pediatric unit.
Thank you, Minister. That will make things a little more clear in Hansard. I see nothing further from Ms. Green. Next I have Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I want to talk a bit about what's not here. Earlier we did talk a bit about some of the long-term care beds that are in this capital plan that we'll be rolling out over the next couple of years, the beds in Hay River and Inuvik. There are also some facilities in some of the communities, the small communities, communities that have maybe 400 to 600 people. One that comes to mind, of course, is Fort Resolution. Fort Resolution has the Great Elders' Facility. The Great Elders' Facility can actually accommodate four individuals living right in the main facility. That main facility now houses social services and some home care.
I'm wondering if the Minister would look at having that place opened up again for residents, older residents, who may not be at the full level where long-term care is needed, but at a level where care is needed, and do the costing on a model such as that. My understanding, at this point, just from the numbers that we've been talking about for elders in a long-term care facility in Hay River, for example, which is generally where Fort Resolution elders go, would cost something in the neighbourhood of $550,000 to $600,000 per year. If the department comes up with something that is less cost for individuals who may not need the full long-term care but there's nothing in between, there's nothing in the gap, so right now they go right from their homes to long-term care, so in order to fill the gap that facility used to house people who were in there prior to long-term care. Some even passed away; they actually went palliative and passed away in that home.
I'm wondering if the Minister would take a second look at that, considering that it would be quite a savings to house people there as opposed to going directly into long-term care. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. I will note that that is more appropriate for the next activity summary. Seeing that, I'd like the Minister to keep that question in mind, and I will call the first activity summary, then we can move on to it and the Minister can answer your question, if that's appropriate. Mr. Beaulieu, do you have a comment?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I apologize for that. Mr. Chairman, on the administrative and support services, the same system the previous Member spoke of, the mental health and addictions information system, on the detail it indicates clinical data from mental health patients. I'm just wondering if that includes addicts as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister.
Yes, all of them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, my questions would be for the next section, so I can wait.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Seeing nothing further, I will call this section. Health and Social Services, administrative and support services, infrastructure investments, $32,442,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We will now turn to page 35, with the accompanying information on page 36, and I will allow the Minister to respond to Mr. Beaulieu's first question. Minister Abernethy.
