Siksika Nation launches Alberta’s first electronic immunization information system for First Nations

Times Contributor

 

Siksika Health Centre is a leading health care provider in Alberta, thanks to an innovative program utilizing cutting edge medical technology.

In a breakthrough initiative that is expected to greatly improve healthcare delivery, four First Nations communities in Alberta have announced their moves from paper-based immunization records to a digital database on Dec. 16, in Edmonton, with three more communities expected to come online before March.

Protecting children from vaccine-preventable diseases is a priority for First Nations communities. This initiative needed someone with insight and proactive thinking in order to get it off the ground. 

Gisele Smith is currently the Community Health Nursing Team Leader at the clinic and, under the direction of senior manager Tyler White, took the reins in hand to get the program under way. 

Smith “knew that (she) was going to come back to her community at Siksika after her training as a nurse, to give something back to the community she was raised in.” After graduating Smith had the opportunities in front of her to do many things and go many places but chose to “come home” to do innovative and creative things with the First Nations peoples of Siksika.

The CHIP (Community Health and Immunization Program) is one of many new and innovative programs being offered in Siksika. CHIP is a centralized, easy-to-track system for recording vaccinations electronically. It aims to become the first program in Alberta to seamlessly communicate with the provincial health registry, creating a complete record of a First Nation patient’s immunizations that is viewable in any clinic that also uses CHIP. 

“In Alberta, First Nations are the only communities that still have paper-based records,” notes Dr. Salim Samanani, Medical Director for OKAKI in Canada. “The provincial immunization registry maintained by Alberta Health & Wellness has no information on the vaccinations delivered on First Nations, so there is no way for health service providers or public health authorities to get a complete picture of the immunizations received (or not received) by First Nations residents. This has led to communities with higher rates of vaccine-preventable illnesses than in the rest of the province.”

The system was developed by OKAKI Health Intelligence as a service for First Nations communities, with start-up funding and technical support contributed by Cybera which is a not-for-profit organization that works to spur and support innovation, for the economic benefit of Alberta, through the use of cyberinfrastructure. Cybera collaborates with public and private partners to accelerate research and product development in priority areas such as health, energy, environment, and emerging technologies. Cybera operates CyberaNet, a high-speed high-bandwidth advanced network in Alberta, and provides project management services to WestGrid / Compute Canada, a consortium that provides advanced computing in support of research across Canada.

 The Siksika Health Centre has partnered with many in the private sectors (such as sharing doctors from Strathmore and the needed resources available to them to not only launch the program but to be able to keep it up and running. With Siksika reaching out and partnering with groups from international healthcare companies like Pfizer, more than 30,000 immunization records of children and adults have been digitally recorded across the Stoney, Siksika, Kehewin and Frog Lake First Nations. The group has plans to expand to many more communities within the next year.

Non-Nation health care systems have been using this technology for many years as they are governed by Alberta Health Services. The First Nations group had to partner with AB Health to make sure that their program was compatible with such programs as Medi-Patient in the Strathmore areas zone. 

The results of this CHIP initiative will be providing safer and more effective vaccination programs for First Nations children. It will improve the communication and sharing of critical information between health service providers on and off reserve and it will build stronger partnerships between First Nations and the provincial health system and government.

The Chief Executive Officer of Siksika Health Services Tyler White says that “the Siksika Nation will continue to strive to be innovative with meeting the highest standards of excellence in First Nations health and continue with formalizing partnerships with the provincial, federal, international and First Nations partners.” 

This process has been a “win-win situation for Siksika as it has opened up stronger relations with non-nations peoples.”