PROVIDER E-HEALTH PORTAL ALLOWS REGIONAL HOSPITALS TO SHARE DATA

In 2005, the Ontario government decided to transfer the operation of Georgetown Hospital from William Osler Health Centre to Halton Healthcare Services. During the transition, historical clinical data was left on the Osler system, and after the transfer, many of the physicians remained at Georgetown and still provided service to Osler. In order to provide clinicians with access to patient data from both organizations, a “provider portal” was deemed the best approach to meet the clinical data sharing needs of physicians and clinicians.

The IT staff from Halton and Osler worked together to identify available vendor solutions, and during the request for proposals process, three other hospitals — Credit Valley Hospital, Trillium Health Centre and Headwaters Health Care — became involved in the evaluation because it was felt they might join the network later. In 2006, Credit Valley acquired a licence for the provider portal; Trillium and Headwaters followed in 2008.

In a presentation at the eHealth Summit, Dan Germain, vice-president, CFO and CIO at Credit Valley, explained how the Rapid Electronic Access to Clinical Health Information (REACH) system was deployed. The REACH provider portal (provided by Medseek) is a web-based Portal solution that consolidates clinical patient data from disparate vendor systems (in real-time) into a unified, patient-centric view regardless of site location.

Currently, the REACH portal allows viewing of allergies and alerts, laboratory results, pharmacy medications, pathology reports, radiology images and reports, ECG tracings, clinical orders, clinical documentation, scanned paper records, rounding reports, and other clinical data. It’s developed on a federated data model, where data is stored at each entity. The REACH server consolidates the clinical data in real time, presenting it to the user in a web browser in milliseconds. It's similar to a Health Information Access Layer (HIAL.)

The REACH portal also employs an Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI.) However, once access is granted to use the Ontario EMPI, REACH will interface to that application. The Credit Valley Hospital's IT team was impressed by the speed with which this application was deployed, Germain said. Implementation was accomplished over a few months, and in the words of users, testing was similar to a systems upgrade. Since the application is very intuitive, users required little if any training.

Before deployment at CVH, a privacy impact assessment was performed. The only significant recommendation was to mandate the use of a pass-code keyfob for remote access via the Internet. Since patient-specific data is only stored once, responsibility for data security and integrity remains with each host hospital.

By the spring of this year, William Osler, Halton and Credit Valley were using the provider portal extensively. Every month, hundreds of physicians and clinicians log onto REACH, one-third of whom are users looking at their patients that have been seen at other facilities. There are now over 9,000 views per month. As well as integrating into the Ontario HIAL and EMPI, Germain said future plans for this initiative include additional clinical content such as operating room systems and realtime physiological wave-form monitoring. REACH is also to extend a Patient Portal providing patient's range of other self-care services directly accessible online.

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Healthcare and Web 2.0

Healthcare systems are undergoing a series of complex transformations. Consumers are demanding better services and information that enables provider transparency and a more personalized service delivery model. This shift in healthcare has already begun, whether or not healthcare delivery organizations are ready to respond or not. We are quickly moving away from the traditional models of medicine and towards a patient-centric model with the intent to deliver more efficient care, whilst simultaneously improving patient outcomes.

The advent of new web 2.0 eHealth technologies is serving as a powerful catalyst and today’s savvy consumers (patients) are demanding that the often slow-moving healthcare industry act in response to their evolving needs.

The increasing expectations of consumers is a clear reflection of wider societal changes that have been evolving for a number of years, however, the pace of these trends has recently accelerated. In particular, the ability to articulate and communicate (1:1) individual preferences and demands has been made far easier with advancing web technologies. Such tools, for example, have enabled even novice internet users to create and edit content online. It’s clear; today’s Patients are becoming better informed and more web savvy; increasingly seeking services that allow them to take an active role in managing their health.

Patient Empowerment
Empowering patients to take more control over their health extends to those actions individuals and take for themselves, their children, their families and others to stay fit and maintain good physical and mental health; meet social and psychological needs; prevent illness or accidents; care for minor ailments and long-term conditions; and maintain health and well being after an acute illness or discharge from hospital. This “Self-care” is also one of the key building blocks for patient-centric healthcare delivery, and research shows that supporting self-care improves health outcomes, increases patient satisfaction, and reduces the increasing administrative burden.

This (r)evolution is also driven by things like the increased adoption of online services via broadband and mobile devices; the enhanced ability to connect with individuals in other social networks; the continuing ease in submitting content online; and the growing participation of users with similar interests in online communities. People are flocking to online communities to share personal health experiences as well as learn from others with similar experiences or conditions. Patient feedback on treatments and providers for example, has begun to develop into an online system that generates transparency in the health system. Today’s web-savvy patients are using web tools to take responsibility for managing their own health status and care-path rather than always relying on experts or the 'doctor knows best' assumption. This self-service (self-care) trend effectively bridges the gap between caregivers and patients – before, during, and after the hospital stay and has far-reaching implications.

Heightened Transparency and Accountability
One of the central components of today's healthcare delivery (and public health at large) is information. The use of eHealth (ICT) technologies related to gathering and retrieving patient data is already important and will only become more important in the future.

Millions of dollars are spent each year in Canada alone on patients with chronic diseases who do not receive the recommended care designed to keep their conditions under control. New web 2.0 consumer tools and service models for chronic conditions are taking shape and the trend toward measurement of clinical outcomes is increasing and irreversible. As both regulatory agencies and consumers insist today on measuring the quality of care across a wide variety of clinical areas, “best-practice” treatment models emerge. This follows the growing awareness that quality equals affordability and that the best way to control long-term costs is to provide higher quality care today.

The Electronic Health Record (EHR)
Technology can be intimidating, however Practitioners recognize today that the use of a comprehensive, transferrable EHR promises to protect patients from preventable errors such as medication mistakes, surgical complications, and much more. It’s proven that extending care delivery stakeholders access to timely, evidence-based and expert information, enables more efficient and better-informed decisions. A recent Advertising campaign by Rexall Drugs in Canada identifies that as many as 200,000 Canadians are hospitalized annually from negative interactions with medications. Moreover, a (US-based) 2008 New England Journal of Medicine survey found that “82 percent of those using such electronic records said they improved the quality of clinical decisions, 86 percent said they helped in avoiding medication errors, and 85 percent said they improved the delivery of preventative care.”

So, whether the goal is to heighten prevention, detection, integration, or extend patients self-management---our healthcare delivery paradigm is clearly shifting to focus on connecting individuals rather than infrastructure---effectively putting patients (and clinicians) at the centre of new models of connectivity for improved communication and collaboration.

May the dreams of our past be the reality of our future.

Canadian Health Records Situation A Travesty

Janet French | The StarPhoenix | Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Canada's foot-dragging on embracing electronic health records is a flaw in the system as revealing as a patient's paper hospital gown, a longtime national health reporter says.  Globe and Mail public health reporter Andre Picard told a Health Quality Council conference on transparency in Saskatoon Friday the nation's lack of electronic health records is a "travesty" that helps make personal health information tricky to get and hard to understand once you do get it.

"Metaphorically, our butt-cracks are showing," he told about 200 conference attendees, who tittered at the remark.

Canada's health system needs to break out of the culture where basic health information -- including your blood sugar readings, blood pressure, cholesterol levels and how those numbers change over time -- is rarely shared with the patient and treated like a "state secret," Picard said.

"We're still in the era of paternalism," Picard said. "We're changing, but we're not changing quickly enough."

Picard gave the example of returning from a trip to Malawi with a parasite. When Picard asked his specialist what the name of the parasite was, the doctor was puzzled about why he wanted to know.

"Why do I want to know what's living in my body?" he said. "I just couldn't believe the arrogance of that. But it's not that uncommon, unfortunately."

The information in medical records belongs to patients, not health-care providers, he says. Standardized, electronic records available throughout the system would simplify access, Picard says. Patients might fare better if they approached health care like they shop for a vehicle, Picard said later in an interview.

"If you go to buy a car, you want the manual," he said. "If you get it fixed, you're not only going to get the bill, you're going to get an explanation of what went wrong and maybe you can avoid it happening the next time. It's the same philosophy."

Too many patients are compliant when they'd be better off asking questions, he said. "They have a great deal of respect for their physicians, which isn't bad, but it's taken too far. We just sort of take their word as gospel."

There's a bonus to inquisitiveness: Research shows engaged patients are healthier, less likely to experience a medical mistake and cheaper for the health-care system, he said.

"I think he's right," said Jean Morrison, the Saskatoon Health Region's vice-president of performance excellence and chief nursing officer, after Picard's talk. "We're a public institution, and people have the right to their information and they have a right to information about what goes on within public institutions."

Bobbylynn Stewart, the region's acting privacy commissioner, says it's "very easy" for patients to see their health records. The department will make copies at 25 cents a page and if an inpatient requests to see his or her chart, a staff member will explain what the jargon means.

Morrison admits many patients would not be able to understand their records without help. The region strives to eventually include a written analysis of tests in the notes to make records more comprehensible, she said. Although lab results, prescription information and diagnostic images are now computerized, Morrison estimates less than one quarter of the region's health records are electronic. The region would like to be paperless, but the provincial government will have to pony up the cash to make it happen, she says.

"Creating electronic records is a costly business because you are truly transforming the health system," Morrison said. "It's the software, the hardware, it's the training of the people, it's the way you do business. It's a multi, multimillion-dollar issue to do that. In the Saskatoon Health Region, we're talking tens-of-millions of dollars."

For skeptics who think information should be kept tightly under wraps, Picard points to Canada's tainted blood scandal, or the Newfoundland scandal where flawed breast cancer tests were done on women for eight years before the health authority admitted the errors.


"We can look at all kinds of elements that came into play, but No. 1, the starting point for that, was people covering up information and not being open about it," he said.

"In my experience, the price of secrecy and the price of paternalism is dead patients and wounded patients," he added.

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jfrench@sp.canwest.com

Using “Virtual Reasoning” to redefine Healthcare

by Dr. Marlene Beggelman

The Internet is redefining the health care industry. Major transformations can be expected because Internet-based technology will deliver certain health care services more effectively and at lower costs. In the near future, much of the information that is currently imparted to consumers by clinicians will be delivered through and by web-based technology. If the web-based tools that deliver this information mature to the point of becoming reimbursable, beyond their current usefulness as value add-ons, the health care industry could experience a dramatic shift.

Tools
Early stage Health 1.0 information has predominantly been available in the form of an “e-pamphlet” with a one-size-fits-all approach. Subsequent generations of Health 2.0 tools are interactive and deliver personalized, and therefore more valuable information that is geared specifically to the user’s input. With the advent of advanced tools, consumers are no longer limited to being passive recipients of pamphlet-style information; in these milieus they interact with each other or with sophisticated software that analyzes cases on an individualized basis. Advanced tools are being used by Internet entities as bait both to drive traffic and to capture detailed user profiling data.

Several categories of interactive Health 2.0 tools are available, including advanced search engines that deliver more accurate results; social media sites in which individuals hone their medical knowledge through interactions with each other; and finally, expert systems - sophisticated software programs that analyze a consumer’s profile and, based on the analysis, pinpoint the most relevant educational information necessary to support the consumer’s health care decisions. Expert system tools basically simulate human reasoning.

Virtual Reasoning – a New Model
Speculation about where Internet health care might be taking us can be approached, in part, as a projection of the next generation of the most advanced web-based health care tools. If what consumers and payers want from health care is an acceptable cost-quality trade off, assurance that care is appropriate for the situation, that the diagnosis is correct, and that errors of commission and omission are kept to a minimum, web-based tools need to move beyond simple information retrieval to the level of analytic services – expert systems that are virtually capable of reasoning, rather than only presenting facts.

If Health 2.0 products bring you cholesterol guidelines, then virtual reasoning tools, in counter-point, should calculate your LDL (bad cholesterol) goal based on your level of risk for heart disease and assess whether or not you are taking the right medicine. If Health 2.0 delivers personalized information, virtual reasoning systems offer the equivalent of a virtual second opinion.

As virtual reasoning tools reach a greater level of maturity, they will represent cost-effective alternatives to certain health care services traditionally performed face-to-face by health care professionals. At some point, they will cease to function merely as value add-ons and become reimbursable, revenue-realizing businesses in their own right, augmenting some of the educational and analytic services now in the purview of health care providers.

The logical end-point of expert system and decision-support adoption will be a new reimbursable segment of the service industry in which lower cost services are rendered through technology solutions. When physicians are reimbursed to use expert system technology, they will have sufficient incentive to adopt electronic medical records (EMR/EHR) as well.

For tools to replace certain traditional face-to-face services they have to be integrated into the clinician’s normal workflow and electronic medical records systems. EMR/EHR companies will first incorporate expert system tools for much the same reasons as the PHR initiatives do – for the value-added benefits they offer to the customer base. In future models, though, fully integrated tools will sit “under the hood” of an EMR/EHR, continually combing the medical record data for errors and oversights as new data is entered. They will compare treatment to evidence-based recommendations, follow response to treatment over time, generate outcomes data, and generally function as an automated quality assurance system.

Physician Adoption
Physicians will ultimately be reimbursed for the time they spend administering care through the medium of information technology. Early pilots will likely be initiated by payers (large, self-insured employers) who believe that the potential for improved, more appropriate care will result in significant cost-savings. These technology adjuncts will free health care professional from the mundane functions of data gathering, recording, and administering; they will enable physicians to focus on the more rewarding cognitive aspects of medical practice. With more free time, physicians can move squarely into a consultancy role in which they help their patients assimilate and analyze increasingly complex choices.

Significant activity around tool adoption is already underway: Microsoft, Google and other Internet companies have been acquiring advanced search and expert system tools; programs in which web-based service delivery is reimbursed are being piloted; and Google Health has taken the first steps to make a large number of tools available on their platform. How quickly the process eventually unfolds depends on a number of factors that mostly revolve around any upcoming changes in health care financing and in the political climate. No matter how health care financing is structured, however, the need for tools that enhance health care quality and efficiency still applies.

Dr. Marlene Beggelman is the CEO of Enhanced Medical Decisions, which is the company behind DoubleCheckMD.com.

Google Health opens, sparks privacy woes

After a year and half of development, Google's online filing cabinet for personal medical records is open to the public, giving users instant electronic access to their health histories, while reigniting privacy concerns.

Called Google Health, the service lets users link information from a handful of pharmacies and care providers, with plans to add many more. The Internet search giant is the latest entrant in the growing field of companies offering personal health records on the Web. Their ranks range from longtime online health services such as WebMD to the software powerhouse Microsoft to start-ups such as Revolution Health.

The companies all hope to capitalize on the trend of consumers increasingly seeking health information online, and the potential of Internet tools to help them manage their own health care and medical spending.

Google enters the field of personal health records with a leading online brand, deep pockets and a wealth of technical skills. In a two-month trial this year, the Cleveland Clinic found that its patients were eager to use the Google health records. Google Health differentiates itself from the pack through its user interface and features such as the public availability of its application program interface, or API, said Marissa Mayer, the Google executive overseeing the service.

More than two dozen companies and institutions announced that they are partners with Google Health, including Walgreens, CVS, the American Heart Association, Quest Diagnostics, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Cleveland Clinic.

Mary Adams, 45, a Cleveland Clinic patient who participated in the Google Health pilot, said that she was initially concerned about the privacy of her medical information. Still, she felt safe enough to enroll and has been using the service for six months, linking it with an online health management tool from the Cleveland Clinic and adding information on prescriptions and doctors to her online profile.

The service, still a non-final ''beta'' version, does not include ads. Besides importing records from providers, users can enhance their password-protected profiles with details such as allergies and medications, they can search for doctors and they can locate Web-based health-related tools. The health venture provides fodder for privacy watchdogs who believe Google already has access to too much about the interests and habits of its users in its logs of search requests and its vaults of e-mail archives.

Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, said services such as Google Health are troublesome because they aren't covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. Passed in 1996, HIPAA set strict standards for the security of medical records.

By transferring records to an external service, patients could unwittingly make it easier for the government, a legal adversary or a marketing concern to obtain private information, Dixon said. During a webcast earlier this week, Mayer said users' health information is stored at Google's ''highest level of security.'' Mayer said in an interview with The Associated Press that users' health information will not show up in search results.

Utah company is participating: A Utah company is one of 14 businesses and organizations that are part of the offerings of Google Health. MediConnect Global of South Jordan offers to retrieve medical records for Google Health users and to identify information from them to be placed in their profiles.

MediConnect will digitize the records from health care providers identified by customers. Customers will be able to access their records online or download them to their own computers. "MediConnect's medical record retrieval service allows people to have access to information from their personal health history from anywhere in the world at anytime," said Amy Rees Anderson, company CEO. The company charges a fee of $98 for up to 100 pages and 10 cents per page for additional records, said Cory Maloy, director of communications. The company complies with the federal health privacy law, he said.



View Original article.

Online Health Info System Is Unveiled by Microsoft: Privacy and Security top list of concerns.

Microsoft Corporation has released a new software product and free Web-based platform that allows individuals to collect, store, and share their electronic medical records. HealthVault is intended to allow people to access their medical records through any device, regardless of the health care provider or insurer. Microsoft has also developed HealthVault Search, a new Internet search engine that helps people find answers to health questions, learn more about topics important to them, confidentially store information they discover, and act on that knowledge to improve their health and wellness.
HealthVault Search also intuitively organizes relevant online health content, allowing people to refine Internet searches to more efficiently find information.

Empowers Consumers
Experts say technology can play a key role in helping solve the problem of "health care fragmentation," the dividing up of a single patient's providers and records between several organizations and locations, and can empower consumers by giving them more control over, and information about, their health care.

"A system like HealthVault can help put patients in control of their own health care by putting information and access directly in their hands, instead of forcing them to go through various intermediaries," said Jeff Emanuel, research fellow for health care policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Health Care News.

"A functional market must be based on empowerment of the consumer, and the health care market is no different," Emanuel said. "Telemedicine and health care technology allow consumers to control their own treatment and records, thereby giving them a stronger hand in their care."

Security Measures
While developing HealthVault, Microsoft consulted privacy advocates, such as the Coalition for Patient Privacy, along with online security experts. HealthVault keeps a log of each time a record is written, changed, or read, which means users can view an audit trail in their personal HealthVault account at any time. Microsoft's HealthVault systems and databases are safeguarded with extra precautions, such as isolating data center traffic on a virtually separate network, and keeping servers in physically separate, locked cabinets. All data traffic to and from HealthVault and its solution providers is encrypted. The system's backup data are also encrypted, and its transportation is logged every time a record is accessed, uploaded, or downloaded.

Privacy Concerns
Not everybody feels confident about Microsoft's ability--or intent--to protect patient privacy. Some analysts point to the system's privacy policy as a sign it is still vulnerable to the targeted disclosure of private information. The policy says, in part:"Microsoft may access and/or disclose your personal information if we believe such action is necessary to: (a) comply with the law or legal process served on Microsoft; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of Microsoft (including the enforcement of our agreements); or (c) act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety and welfare of users of Microsoft services or members of the public" (emphasis added).
"Privacy concerns are consistently shown to be one of the public's biggest worries as health care moves toward a digital future," said Emanuel. "Microsoft's reservation of the right to disclose personal medical information if company officers see such a disclosure as being in the company's best interest is worrisome.

"Security of information should be a primary focus in technological endeavors such as these," Emanuel continued. "Despite the best of intentions, lapses in security can occur, and information can be inadvertently released. Purposely disclosing personal health information is far worse than that.
"Regardless of the reasons for disclosure, the results of such a violation of privacy can be devastating," Emanuel said.

Published In: Health Care News | June 1, 2008 | The Heartland Institute

Microsoft launched the beta version of HealthVault in October 2007. The site was officially launched this February, and in April it was opened up for wider use. Click here to learn how Microsoft® HealthVault™ helps Physicians and hospitals better connect with patients.

INDUSTRY LEADERS FORM TASK FORCE TO ALIGN ON ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORD STANDARDS

May 1, 2008 - Focused on the acceleration of electronic health records, industry leaders from Canada Health Infoway (Infoway), Canadian Healthcare Information Technology Trade Association (CHITTA, the Health Division of Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC)), and the Association of Health Technology Industry (AITS) announced today they have formed a task force to accelerate and promote the transition to a new set of pan-Canadian health information technology standards.

The task force will collaboratively work to promote the adoption of pan-Canadian standards, especially with point of service systems, by engaging clinicians, health care providers and vendors. Involving these stakeholders will support the planning required to ensure the interoperable electronic health record (iEHR) is leveraged and the adoption of pan-Canadian standards is accelerated.

"Time and again, we have seen the success of industries like the financial and consumer sectors drive faster end-user adoption through the implementation of standards," said Dennis Giokas, Chief Technology Officer, Canada Health Infoway. "With the aligned direction of our industry partners we can now work collaboratively to accelerate the deployment and use of these interoperability standards for the benefit of Canadians and the Canadian health care system."

Common standards are an integral element of, and a key requirement for, the establishment of a pan-Canadian interoperable electronic health record. Significant cost savings and quality improvements are achieved when custom integration is eliminated. Patients, clinicians and health service delivery organizations all benefit when data can be reliably shared across health care systems.

"We have been building health care systems using industry standards for over 20 years. Achieving full adoption of the pan-Canadian standards, and realizing the benefit of Canada's health infrastructure investments, is a multi-year journey until new products emerge and legacy systems are retired," said Brendan Seaton, President, CHITTA, the Health Division of Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC).

"Health information systems tend to be stable, so we will see a period where both existing and new standards are supported. We look forward to collaborating with health providers and Canada Health Infoway on developing solutions for this transition."

To enable the successful deployment of interoperable electronic health record solutions, the organizations support the use of: HL7 and DICOM for messaging, LOINC® and SNOMED CT® for terminologies, HL7's Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) for documents, HL7's Clinical Context Object Workgroup (CCOW) specification for clinical context management, as well as the pan-Canadian interoperability profiles.

"The transition to common, pan-Canadian standards allows us to achieve the highest quality in an interoperable electronic health record system. As an industry we are starting to see market demand for these new standards, and our members are making commitments to meet that demand. Success will come when we work together on this very complex challenge," said Daniel Laplante, Executive Director, AITS. Canada is a strong contributor to the global acceleration of EHR standards through its unique collaboration model.

Launched in 2006, the Standards Collaborative provides coordination, implementation, support, education, conformance and maintenance of electronic health record standards in Canada. One third of its members are representatives from health information technology companies.

Read Original Article.

About Infoway
Infoway is an independent, not-for-profit organization funded by the Federal government. Infoway jointly invests with every province and territory to accelerate the development and adoption of electronic health record projects in Canada. Fully respecting patient confidentiality, these secure systems will provide clinicians and patients with the information they need to better support safe care decisions and manage their own health. Accessing this vital information quickly will help foster a more modern and sustainable health care system for all Canadians.

About CHITTA
CHITTA, the Canadian Health Information Technology Trade Association, is the Health Division of ITAC, the Information Technology Association of Canada. CHITTA represents more than 120 companies across Canada that provide information and communications technology (ICT) products and services to the health sector. CHITTA represents the Industry to governments and health care decision-makers for the purposes of building a strong and sustainable health ICT industry in Canada, promoting investment in health ICT, and ensuring the interoperability of health ICT systems.

About AITS
Created in 1987 and representing over 100 members, the Association of health technologies industry's (AITS) mission is to stimulate the development of the health technologies industry and to promote its economic and social value. AITS is a meeting place for exchanges between partners on domestic and foreign markets.

Empowering consumers with their health records: Canada to take a close look at PHR’s

TORONTO, April 17 /CNW/ - As the Internet has enabled consumers to manage important aspects of their personal lives from the relative comfort of their home, it is no surprise that Canadians are becoming increasingly intrigued by the prospect of being able to view and manage their health information using emerging personal health records (PHR) technologies.

Recent announcements by major players in the IT industry suggest such capabilities are just around the corner. Recognizing developments in this area are moving quickly, Canada's federal, provincial and territorial health ministries have expressed support for Canada Health Infoway's (Infoway) plan to discuss personal health record solutions with interested vendors and to explore how these technologies could be made available to Canadians in a secure manner.

"Providing Canadians and their health care providers with appropriate and secure access to their health information has been our goal from the onset," said Richard Alvarez, President and CEO of Canada Health Infoway, the federally-funded, independent, not-for-profit organization that is leading the adoption of electronic health records across Canada. "The prospect of seeing consumer health solutions in the Canadian marketplace is an exciting development indeed. It is also critical that we ensure these offerings provide the appropriate level of trust, protecting the privacy and security of Canadians' health information."

"The Government of Canada, through its funding of Infoway, is investing in the national transition from paper to electronic health records," said the Honourable Tony Clement, Federal Minister of Health. "I am pleased that personal health record solutions will complement and leverage our investments to date in e-health solutions. With the appropriate ground work in place, PHR's will ultimately deliver greater value to Canadian patients."

"Canadians are taking increasingly active roles in managing their chronic diseases and preventing illness from setting in," said Chris d'Entremont, Minister of Health for Nova Scotia, who serves as the liaison minister between Infoway and federal, provincial and territorial health ministers. "Our investments in the implementation of electronic health records are crucial to our goal of ensuring Canadians have access to the information and tools they need to manage their care. The onset of personal health record solutions can accelerate our desire to enable patients to have these capabilities."

A number of technology vendors have expressed interest in creating solutions that will equip Canadians with the technology they need to view their medical data. Working with Infoway and its partners will help ensure the solutions available to Canadians will leverage the progress made in implementing electronic health record projects across Canada. Using technology solutions that are compatible with Infoway's blueprint will ensure patient privacy and security provisions are adhered to. Infoway has funded 249 electronic health record projects across Canada to date. These secure systems are leading the pan-Canadian switch from inefficient paper-based storage of medical data such as lab test results,prescription history and allergy information to electronic systems that are far more efficient, save money, and save lives.

Canada Health Infoway is an independent, not-for-profit organization funded by the Federal government. Infoway jointly invests with every province and territory to accelerate the development and adoption of electronic health record projects in Canada. Fully respecting patient confidentiality, these secure systems will provide clinicians and patients with the information they need to better support safe care decisions and manage their own health. Accessing this vital information quickly will help foster a more modern and sustainable health care system for all Canadians.

For further information: Dan Strasbourg, Director, Corporate
Communications, Canada Health Infoway, dstrasbourg@infoway-inforoute.ca, (416)
595-3424

Mississauga's William Osler Health Centre goes high-tech with patients' records

The Brampton Guardian | Monday December 24 2007 | PETER CRISCIONE

BRAMPTON - William Osler Health Centre (WOHC) is among three hospital sites in southern Ontario equipped with the ability to share patient data through a new web-based electronic healthcare record (EHR) viewer.

Agfa HealthCare, a leading provider of IT-enabled clinical workflow and diagnostic imaging solutions, unveiled recently new technology (their Clinical Dashboard platform) that allow's users to easily access critical patient information from any personal computer, handheld, or tablet PC with Internet access. For instance, data at WOHC's Etobicoke and Brampton sites can be retrieved and shared with Halton Healthcare Services (Oakville, Milton, Georgetown) and Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga.

This eHealth portal (EHR Viewer) solution serves the nearly one million residents living in the communities of Brampton, Etobicoke and Georgetown.

"Agfa's proven federated portal model is a 'win-win' situation for hospitals - simple in premise, and deployed at a fraction of the time and cost of competitors, with immediate return on investment," said Dieter Pagani, director of Agfa HealthCare's Enterprise Solutions Group. "These hospitals are truly eHealth leaders in Ontario, and have taken a quantum-leap towards eliminating the traditional barriers associated with sharing data." Company officials say this vendor-agnostic technology promises to fundementally alter the Canadian healthcare landscape.

Agfa HealthCare's eHealth solutions are customized to meet the needs of each hospital and their unique stakeholders, "and built on a complimentary core foundation that is web-based, scalable, extensible and focused on delivering fast return on investment." The new technology ensures all three sites (including Credit Valley Hospital and Halton Health) can securely share all patient records---regardless of IT systems or vendors.

"This makes us trailblazers," said Judy Middleton, Chief Information Officer for WOHC. "If a physician has a patient at Osler, and the patient says 'I've been at Oakville or I've been at Credit Valley', then all the information from their visits will be accessible by the physician. So in terms of expediting treatment and care, you have much more information (at your disposal)."

Middleton said other hospitals in the Central West Local Health Integration Network (LHIN,) of which WOHC is a part of, are taking steps to adopt this innovative technology. In achieving this level of interoperability, William Osler will be able to reduce duplication and errors, while increasing the level of accuracy of information in terms of diagnosis, Middleton said.

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[Original Article]