New dashboard shows VTAC’s impact on local health care

RENFREW COUNTY – At the click of a button, the community can now easily access a current snapshot of how local municipalities are accessing and benefiting from the Renfrew County Virtual Triage and Assessment Centre’s primary care and COVID-19 testing services.

“Since the pandemic began, our mission has been to ensure everyone in Renfrew County and South Algonquin has timely access to primary care assessment and COVID-19 testing,” Dr. Jonathan Fitzsimon, clinical coordinator of Renfrew County Virtual Triage and Assessment Centre (RC VTAC), said. “We have had an unprecedented impact on primary care in our region assessing more than 8,700 patients since we started – many of whom would have otherwise had to seek care through the emergency department. The new dashboard provides detailed insights into how exactly our new healthcare service has made a difference in the various communities we serve.” 

The dashboard is accessible to everyone and available on the RC VTAC website. The data is validated and updated weekly. The information captured includes:

• Total number of assessments
• Total number of virtual assessments by a primary care physician
• Total number of in-home assessments by a community paramedic
• Total number of COVID-19 tests completed
• VTAC patients by location (and number of patients with or without a family physician)
• RC VTAC calls by timeframe
• COVID-19 swabs used by month
• Referral sources to VTAC

“The dashboard provides our community with greater transparency and a more fulsome picture of RC VTAC’s ongoing impact as we support our region’s safe reopening by delivering necessary virtual and in-home assessments and convenient COVID-19 testing,” Karen Simpson, administrative lead RC VTAC, said.

The dashboard was developed by a team from Algonquin College at the Pembroke Campus.

“Algonquin College is committed to supporting innovative initiatives that provide a meaningful contribution to our community and is uniquely positioned to do so by utilizing the wide variety of expertise at our Pembroke Campus,” Sadie Barnett, professor and project lead Algonquin College, said. “Faculty and an alumnus from our Computer Systems Technician program as well as faculty from our Health and Community Studies department collaborated with the RC VTAC team to develop the dashboard, which is a useful tool in capturing program-related data in a user-friendly way and demonstrating the positive impact of this initiative. The work the RC VTAC team is doing is an outstanding example of local healthcare system leaders collaborating and thinking outside of the box to address the unique needs of Renfrew County and South Algonquin residents, and we are happy to support in any way we can.”

The dashboard includes location-based information that uses postal codes to best provide municipality mapping.

For more information about RC VTAC’s primary care assessments and ongoing COVID-19 testing, visit www.rcvtac.ca.