HAMILTON HEALTH SCIENCES (HHS) WINS MEDSEEK’s 2009 eHEALTH EXCELLENCE AWARD

MEDSEEK recognizes HHS for its outstanding web portal vision, innovation, performance and achievement.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MEDSEEK, the leading provider of enterprise portal connectivity solutions, announced today that Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) won MEDSEEK’s 2009 eHealth Excellence Award for outstanding vision, innovation and performance in using web portal technology to enhance care delivery, information access and service. The award was presented to Dale Anderson, HHS’ manager of projects and eHealth solutions, at MEDSEEK’s 9th Annual eHealth Client Congress in Tampa, Fla., on Feb. 25, 2009.

Hamilton Health Sciences is one of the most comprehensive health care systems in Canada. Its six hospitals and cancer facility are licensed for more than 900 beds and serve more than 2.3 million residents of Hamilton and central south and central west Ontario. Through its affiliation with McMaster University's Faculty of Health Sciences, HHS offers some of the most innovative treatments and talented medical professionals in Canada.

“MEDSEEK is pleased to recognize HHS for the exceptional efforts it has made to provide safe, high quality care as well provide a total user experience throughout the entire healthcare system,“ said Peter Kuhn, MEDSEEK’s CEO. “We are excited to acknowledge the impact our portal solutions have had across HHS’ enterprise and among its physicians, patients and employee constituencies.”

Over the past 4 years, more than 2,700 HHS clinicians have registered to access its patients’ electronic medical records in real time via a portal called ClinicalConnect. Through this portal, clinicians have access to a unified, single view of a patient’s clinical reports, laboratory results, medication lists, images and other data stored in disparate clinical systems. These systems include a hospital information solution from MEDITECH, picture archiving and communication system from GE Healthcare as well as a health information management application from Sovera Document Imaging.

In 2007, HHS redesigned its consumer portal to make it easier and more convenient for patients and visitors to access health information and interact with the organization. The consumer portal provides greater emphasis on patient education and included an upgrade of the existing infrastructure to make the site more stable and reliable for end users.

HHS, which is the largest employer in Hamilton, has also implemented an employee portal to disseminate and streamline communication with its more than 10,000 employees, improving efficiency, productivity, job satisfaction and staff retention. Employees are using the portal to access staff directory, schedules, internal job postings, training and more, helping HHS’ human resources department operate more efficiently.

“We are honored to be recognized by MEDSEEK for excellence in the use of eHealth to improve patient care, safety and operational efficiencies,” said HHS’ Anderson. “We chose to partner with MEDSEEK for its unparalleled insight into healthcare technology innovations and best practices, and its focus on the user experience which has truly transformed and streamlined our ability to provide quality patient care.” Although ClinicalConnect began at Hamilton Health Sciences, it is now being extended and adopted by the Local Health Integration Network or region to interconnect other hospitals, community healthcare agencies and healthcare providers.

About Hamilton Health Sciences
Hamilton Health Sciences is a family of six unique hospitals and a cancer centre, serving more than 2.3 million residents of Hamilton and central west Ontario. Hamilton Health Sciences is the second largest hospital group in Ontario and serves as a regional referral centre for burns, trauma, cardiac, stroke, neurosurgery, pediatrics, digestive diseases, high-risk obstetrics, cancer, orthopedics and rehabilitation services. With a staff of approximately 10,000, the hospital is the largest employer in Hamilton, Ontario. As an academic teaching hospital with more than 900 beds and an affiliation with McMaster University and Mohawk College, Hamilton Health Sciences is committed to providing exemplary health care for the people and communities we serve and advancing excellence in education and health research.

About MEDSEEK
For more information, visit www.medseek.com or call 888-MEDSEEK.

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Hamilton Health connecting around the world

Hamilton Health Sciences' orthopedic surgeon Dr. Justin deBeer was halfway around the world in Taipei, Taiwan but wanted to be able to keep tabs on his patients back in Canada. What in the past would have been a next to impossible proposition was actually done quickly and easily thanks to ClinicalConnect – a web-based portal for physicians that brings together data from three of the hospital’s most commonly used clinical software systems in an electronic health record format.

Hamilton Health Sciences worked with Medseek to design and implement the "ClinicalConnect" portal, but also engaged physicians from a variety of disciplines to offer input and drive the creation of the final product. Since Meditech is the most widely used information system at Hamilton Health Sciences, it was the first to be merged into the ClinicalConnect environment. ClinicalConnect offers a user-friendly view of the Meditech information, which ranges from admission information to lab results, and allows physicians to view the information simply by signing on to ClinicalConnect.

The next step involved adding views of patient records, stored in a system called Sovera. Currently the charts are scanned and merely displayed through ClinicalConnect, however, the portal does allow physicians to view the information and also indicates the number of chart deficiencies that need to be resolved. By the end of this year, physicians will be able to access Sovera directly through ClinicalConnect, which will enable them to interact with patient information in real time and directly resolve any chart deficiencies. In the future, physicians will have the option to e-edit and e-sign Meditech-based charts in the portal, and the updates will be passed back to the Meditech system. When this feature is available in the portal, it will also be available via PDAs.

Adding PACS to the system proved to be a tremendous enhancement, since it enables physicians to view X-rays from the same system that houses other clinical information about their patients. And by signing on to one system, physicians can access and interact with all of this information. They can also customize their views and pick and choose which information they want to see and when.

“Our ClinicalConnect portal gives physicians and other clinicians secure, real-time access to electronic patient records. Whether they are at the hospital or elsewhere, our physicians can quickly access all clinical reports, lab results, PACS images, pharmacy medication lists and much more,” said Dale Anderson, information and communications technology manager of projects and e-Health solutions at Hamilton Health Sciences.

As Hamilton Health Sciences expands the wireless network within its four sites, ClinicalConnect will become even more valuable. Already, some physicians have been piloting wireless applications of the system on PDAs in certain areas of the hospital. They’ve got access to all available patient information when they are seeing the patient. Patients are also able to ask questions about particular tests and procedures when they are with their doctor and do not have to wait for results to be retrieved from another computer or system.

The remote access to patient information through ClinicalConnect enables healthcare providers him to use remote Internet access to call up the patient’s information, including X-ray images and blood work, to check up on patients.

View a (Flash-based) overview of Hamilton Health Sciences "ClinicConnect” solution.

Originally published in Canadian Healthcare Technology, April 2007