The following steps are required for all students and on-site faculty prior to a placement at PHSA.
1Complete PHSA e-learning modules
Mandatory Confidentiality Requirement:
Complete PHSA Privacy and Security 101 (30 minutes).
This will be PHSA's record of your confidentiality agreement.
2Read PHSA core policies & procedures
Read the PHSA Core Policies provided on the Shared Health Organization Portal (SHOP).
Read the Speak Up for Patient Safety procedure.
3Complete the electronic health record training for your placement site
To access the electronic health record (EHR) during your practicum, you must complete the training and agreement, at least one week prior to placement start. Check the sites below for further details on the primary EHR used and training requirements.
CST Cerner is replacing Legacy Cerner in a phased approach as of Spring 2022. You may need to access and train for both systems, follow the instructions and links for your discipline below.
Training must be completed prior to your practicum or you will not receive access.
Training is organized by the CST Learning Team, who will email you your specific training requirements - check your school-based email account. Go to CST Learning Journey for further information and details.
Residents, medical students, nurse practitioners, midwives, dentists, pharmacists
Allied Health*
Clerical medical office assistants, hospital support specialists
Health Information Management
BC Mental Health & Substance Use Services:
- ADHD Clinic
- Infant Psychiatric Clinic
- Mood Disorders Clinic
- Neuropsychiatry Clinic
- Compass Program
- Teaching & Consultation Clinic
- Telehealth Outreach Psychiatric Services (TOPS)
- OCD Clinic
- Reproductive Mental Health
Training will be organized by the CST Learning Team, who contact School Placement Coordinators (or on-site coordinators) to schedule you into a training session. Go to CST Learning Journey for details and instructions.
CAIS is used at Kelowna Cancer Center. BC Cancer staff request CAIS access for students who will need access during their practicum.
CST Cerner Training will be organized by the CST Learning Team, who will contact School Placement Coordinators (or on-site coordinators) to schedule students into their training session. See CST Learning Journey for details.
Unique network and systems access required, managed by Warden's Office.
Check with your supervisor for the site.
4Accessing clinical information systems
Depending on your discipline and where you are in your program, you may need access to the following clinical information systems. Please review for the information on how access is enabled.
Students and residents with a Confirmed placement in HSPnet are auto-provisioned a PHSA network account. Network accounts are unique to each HA. Activation instructions are sent to student school based email account within 30 days of placement start date.
Dictation in electronic health records (EHR) is done using front end speech recognition (FESR) at most PHSA sites. Training is required to use the 3M/M Modal FESR software.
If you need dictation access, register for FESR training (see choices below) and Health Information Management (HIM) Transcription Services will follow-up to enable your account.
If you have a FESR account and are going to a new site, contact HIM Transcription Services (TranscriptionAlerts2@vch.ca) or 604-806-9696) to enable access at the new site.
FESR access is available to:
- medical students
- residents
For other disciplines that require dictation access, your supervisor will need to request on your behalf.
Enrol in FESR training, ideally after EHR training:
For CST Cerner sites, either:
For non-CST Cerner sites:
Questions can be sent to
TranscriptionAlerts2@vch.ca.
CareConnect (the Provincial eHealth Viewer) access is provided to medical students and medical residents.
Once your network account is created, your CareConnect access will be set up and a welcome package will be sent directly to your school issued email address.
CareConnect is a secure, view-only Electronic Health Record (EHR) that delivers patient-centric information required to support healthcare providers in their delivery of patient care. CareConnect offers authorized care providers 24/7 access to an integrated, provincial view of clinical information including:
- Provincial Laboratories Information Solution (PLIS)
- Provincial Diagnostic Imaging Viewer (PDIV),
- Registration Information
- Encounters
- Documents
- Community Summaries
Nova Biomedical StatStrip Glucose Meter
For students and instructors at BC Children’s, BC Women’s, BC Cancer, Heartwood, and Red Fish Healing Centre, use
this Instruction Sheet to obtain access to the Nova Biomedical StatStrip glucose meters.
Check with your site supervisor for access.
Check with your site supervisor for access.
Check with your site supervisor for access.
Panorama is an integrated public health clinical surveillance information system to improve health outcomes related to communicable diseases as well as more efficient management of family health and immunization programs. Panorama is used to manage mass screening and immunizations, vaccine inventories, and communicable diseases as well as early childhood assessments and maternal and child health. If your practicum is at the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC), staff there will request your access.
5Violence Prevention
All students are required to complete the eight online Violence Prevention modules (included in SPECO).
In addition, some programs/locations require additional violence prevention training to be completed in a classroom setting. This includes all BC Mental Health sites (Forensic Psychiatric Hospital, Red Fish Healing Centre, Correctional Health Services, Heartwood Centre) and some areas of BC Children's Hospital (CAPE Unit and Fir Square).
Please check with your placement contact to see if classroom training is required and how to schedule it and/or view destination prerequisites in HSPnet.
6Learn about your worksite
The Learn About Your Worksite section has useful information about parking, etc.
