Connect Care Spring 2026 Upgrade
The Spring 2026 Upgrade to the Connect Care clinical information system will occur on May 14, with changes to most Connect Care applications. These changes are primarily enhancements and will affect all prescribers using Connect Care. Users can preview the upgraded applications in the PLY/PLY2 environment and practice their workflows starting May 4.
Please see the below sections for details on how to find information on the Spring Upgrade and additional changes.
"What's New" Tool
A new tool will be used to communicate the Spring Upgrade changes. Rather than providing links to various PDFs that summarize changes by context/specialty, information on the changes will be available directly within Connect Care under a "What's New" feature. Starting April 30 and for 4 weeks post-upgrade, users will see a "What's New" notification (purple megaphone icon) in their home workspace; clicking this will take the user to a summary of changes relevant to them. Content that is seen will be based on the areas that the user visited in the 6 weeks prior to the notification.
Note: A couple additional changes will be going live at the same time for convenience but are not technically part of the Spring Upgrade package, namely the BPMH optimizations and new ED Downtime Track Board. These changes will not be summarized in the "What's New" tool, but information can be found in the section below.
Further Information (Spring Upgrade and Additional Changes)
BPMH Optimizations
Alongside the Spring Upgrade, enhancements will be implemented for the Best Possible Medication History (BPMH) section within Connect Care, to improve usability and workflow efficiency. These changes will affect the BPMH workflow for all specialties in inpatient, continuing care, and ambulatory care who have medication management within their scope. Note that these changes will not be summarized in the "What's New" tool, but demo videos and other resources are linked below. Also below are links to a set of new refresher videos that walk through the essential steps of medication reconciliation (med rec) in Connect Care, for safe prescribing as outlined in minimum use norms.
NEW LINKS Demo videos: Spring Upgrade - BPMH Inpatient (2 min); Spring Upgrade - BPMH Ambulatory (1 min)
Quick reference: Prescriber Inpatient Admission Med Rec Review; Prescriber Discharge Home Med Rec Review
NEW LINKS Med rec walkthrough videos (4 parts): Chapter 1 - Med Rec Intro (1.5 min); Chapter 2 - Admission Med Rec (3 min); Chapter 3 - Discharge Med Rec (1 min); Chapter 4 - IFT Med Rec (1.5 min)
Insite: Required Organizational Practices - Medication Reconciliation Staff Education Tools
ED Downtime Track Board
A new feature that will go live at large EDs and Urgent Care Centres alongside the Spring Upgrade is the ED Downtime Track Board, which supports patient tracking during a scheduled downtime. Note that this change will not be summarized in the "What's New" tool, but a prescriber tip sheet and detailed guide is available, linked below the list of the sites that will have access.
Sites (Emergency/Urgent Care):
Calgary: Alberta Children's Hospital, Foothills Medical Centre, Peter Lougheed Centre, Rockyview General Hospital, Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre, South Health Campus
Edmonton: Grey Nuns Community Hospital, Misericordia Community Hospital, Northeast Community Health Centre, Royal Alexandra Hospital, Strathcona Community Hospital (Sherwood Park), Sturgeon Community Hospital (St. Albert), University of Alberta Hospital/Stollery Children's Hospital
Regional: Chinook Regional Hospital (Lethbridge), Grande Prairie Regional Hospital, Northern Lights Regional Health Centre (Fort McMurray), Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre
Anesthesia L&D Face Time Reminder
As part of the Spring 2026 upgrade, hourly mobile push notifications for Face Time with labour epidural patients will be turned on by default. Anesthesia clinicians will receive a Haiku push notification when 3 or more hours have passed since a Face Time event, Anesthesia Start, or Analgesia Start event was documented for a labour epidural patient.
Background: In the US, the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) recommends that anesthesia clinicians round on labour epidural patients every 3-4 hours to support effective pain management and early identification of epidural complications. Because a single anesthesia clinician often covers multiple epidural patients on an L&D unit, it can be challenging to keep track of when each patient was last seen.
Turning notifications off: Since these guidelines are not followed in Canada, clinicians will be able to turn these notifications off. To stop receiving them, clinicians can go to their mobile notification settings, find Anesthesia L&D Face Time Reminders, and disable these push notifications. For instructions, see the guide:
Guide: Anesthesia Provider - Haiku for iOS Users (see page 18 – Choose which push notifications appear)
Mobility (Haiku and Canto) Changes
For Haiku and Canto, there are a few minimal upgrades going live May 14, including: changing passwords directly in the app; sorting/filtering In Basket messages; documenting and sharing medication interaction warnings (iOS); and adding patient-reported medications. See the tip sheet for details.