CST Cerner upgraded in time for Vancouver General go-live

A new version of CST Cerner was recently rolled out to sites using this electronic health record system in time for the CST project’s largest go-live at Vancouver General Hospital (November). It’s in use at dozens of sites and hundreds of clinics across the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA), Providence Health Care (PHC), and Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH).

The CST Cerner upgrade was completed in August to enhance performance, complete bug fixes and allow for future system improvements. This is part of continuing to modernize care in BC through the CST project. (Read about the benefits of the CST Project here)

This upgrade focused on keeping the system running efficiently behind the scenes as CST Cerner continues to roll out to new sites. Staff may have noticed minor updates to how CST Cerner connects with other systems like Sunquest or Excelleris, and may even have found that it runs a little faster.

Upgrades are an intensive but important undertaking

To illustrate the scale and complexity of this project, the first upgrade to CST Cerner took place in summer 2019  impacting just 3,000 users across ten sites within Vancouver Coastal Health, including Lions Gate Hospital. Since then, we’ve grown to almost 30,000 users with major facilities such as St. Paul’s Hospital, BC Cancer – Vancouver, BC Children’s Hospital and BC Women’s Hospital + Health Centre now using the system. Vancouver General Hospital will be joining soon.

British Columbia one of first regions to use latest software 

“We are one of only three regions in Canada and the largest active program to use the latest version of Cerner software,” said Ryan Gerard, chief transformation officer, CST. “Periodic system updates are an important strategy for staying current as we continue the rollout of CST Cerner to modernize care in BC.”

The overall number of CST Cerner users has grown to over 30,000 across Provincial Health Services Authority, Vancouver Coastal Health and Providence Health Care. Learn more: cstproject.ca