Electronic Health Record (SHARE)

Nova Scotia's electronic health record system, called SHARE (Secure Health Access Record), will allow healthcare professionals to access patient health information where and when they need it, no matter where in the province that care was provided. This will contribute to providing better care, faster treatment, and improved access to information and services.

Every province and territory in Canada is working to implement electronic health record systems that will provide timely access to patient information and enhance the way health care is delivered to patients. Nova Scotia is leading the way, as one of the first provinces to make this technology available to healthcare providers.

In time, every Nova Scotian will have an electronic health record, accessible to authorized healthcare providers, that contains their up-to-date health information from all the health care systems in the province. These records will

• be private and secure
• allow authorized healthcare providers to access a patient's information when and where it is needed

SHARE is part of a national health information network and is a foundational component of Nova Scotia's information management structure for health care.

Beginning in fall 2010, SHARE was made available to specific groups of healthcare providers across the province. This begins to put the technology in place to create a single electronic health record for everyone receiving care in the province and to fill those records with essential information that is now being added.

Through its evolution, SHARE will provide a big-picture view of the patient's health and care history. It will contain patient health and care-related information from across the province and all parts of health care that have been added since SHARE began operating.