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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Thought Leader Series | "Patient Portals"

by Peter Kuhn | October 08, 2008

According to the Deloitte 2008 Survey of Health Care Consumers, over 70 percent of consumers want their hospital to provide online access to an integrated view of their medical information, including test results, doctor visits and hospital stays. Yet the percentage of hospitals that have deployed a true patient portal is still in the single digits.

Although it may appear that the healthcare industry has been devoid of motivation for the past 10 years, hospitals have been investing heavily in technology such as hospital information systems, laboratory systems, picture archiving computer systems and other solutions that enable electronic connectivity for clinicians within the organizations. These investments are already beginning to show results in terms of productivity and cost savings.

However, this is just the start of the process of patient data integration. Even though some hospitals have successfully linked major disparate systems within the hospital, few have fully integrated their environments, such as pharmacy interaction for closed loop medication reconciliation and seamless access to physician practice-based electronic medical records (EMR), the source of the majority of a patient’s encounter history.

Connecting to the multitude of EMRs can be a real challenge for hospitals. For example, if there are 1,000 referring doctors in a given area, and approximately 300 different EMR solutions in the industry (depending on who you ask), it is reasonable to assume that a hospital might need to interface with 15 distinct EMRs within just one community. Adding to the complexity is the fact that the average patient sees three to five different providers. This is all compounded by the relative newness of system and interoperability standards, which has erected significant speed bumps for risk-averse hospital systems.

Next Up ... Patients
Once hospitals link their inpatient hospital systems with outpatient (physician) EMR systems (still a dream for many healthcare systems today), the next step is to extend the network to include patients. Several factors motivate hospitals to accelerate this step. First, the expanding adoption of high-deductible insurance plans by employers is forcing fiscal and care decision making upon consumers. With this increased level of responsibility, consumers are demanding greater transparency in costs and improved value of the care delivered by providers. This is well supported by industry statistics: For example, the Deloitte 2008 Survey of Health Care Consumers shows that 64 percent of consumers wish to use Web sites to research the quality of hospital care, 62 percent wish to verify the prices of hospital services and 59 percent wish to view information about health conditions and treatments.

Consumers who are often drafted into the consumer-directed healthcare model through their employers have become empowered patients that expect value for their time and money. As indicated in the Deloitte study, 68 percent are interested in same-day appointments and 60 percent want online appointment scheduling — and they are willing to pay for the convenience. In fact, one in four consumers would pay extra for online access to these integrated services and patient information.

As insurer reimbursements continue their downward spiral, this new source of incremental revenue is a strong motivation for providers, as is the competitive advantage that it supplies in the increasingly crowded marketplace. Additionally, hospitals are beginning to realize that the more extensive the integration of actionable patient information and online access, the greater return on investment they experience. Large hospital systems in cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, Detroit and the Washington/Baltimore region are making some of the greatest strides in this area.

Disruptive Technology?
An interesting development occurred with the entrance of Microsoft and Google into the healthcare arena. Their ubiquitous consumer outreach has introduced the masses to the concept of medical information access at a rate and scope not achievable by a healthcare organization without millions of additional dollars spent in patient communications. Now, EMRs and personal health records are some of the hottest concepts within consumer media, compelling patients to approach their physicians and hospitals to ask for the ability to view and access their medical information and healthcare services. Consumers now know that these services exist — and they want them.

This situation is similar to the shake-up that occurred in the travel industry, triggered by the consumer-focused, online services provided by Expedia and similar travel portals. Traditional agencies had to adapt and offer comprehensive online services or be left behind. Google and Microsoft have shaken the healthcare tree, and it’s time to evolve or fall to the ground.

But even those two corporate behemoths are not supplying all of the legs of the patient data stool. They are offering free medical record storage, but with limited integration to all the disparate sources of medical data. Their solutions provide limited benefits related to enhanced clinical workflow and productivity. But they do point the industry to that which it lacks — access combined with actionable data.

Unfortunately, some hospital organizations may pause once they provide basic access to data, without providing a means to act upon that data. Patients wish to see their test results, but then they need to schedule a follow-up appointment, ask questions and request prescription refills. This is the actionable functionality that is key to achieving the maximum workflow, quality and safety benefits with these integrated systems.

Significant Savings
We have seen a 3-to-1 variance when comparing the use of phone-based services to online services. On average, the provider’s staff spends three minutes on the phone scheduling an appointment; yet that same action would take a patient one minute to accomplish via a patient portal, without requiring assistance from hospital personnel. Multiplied across patients, the time savings for both parties is substantial. Additionally, the patient has the convenience of scheduling an appointment whenever they have time, whether it is at 2 a.m. on a weeknight or at 10 a.m. on a Sunday. No wait, no hassle and all the benefits of online services — e-mail reminders, online calendars and more.

For clinicians and staff, these online requests can be responded to during non-peak times so that hands-on patient care can be their first priority, contributing to improved patient outcomes and safety. Furthermore, the streamlined workflow enabled by the portal enhances all phases of the continuum of care.

Word of Mouth Goes Viral
Lastly, the satisfaction delivered to the patients, as well as to the clinicians, should not be underestimated. Just like the old-fashioned word of mouth, happy patients will send links to helpful information found on patient portals to their friends, relatives and colleagues. Some portals even enable patients to provide family members with authorized access to their private medical information. Otherwise known as viral marketing, by encouraging patients to forward information about the given hospital’s impressive patient portal services, hospitals have tapped into one of the most powerful and cost-effective marketing methods for attracting future patients.

Of course, any change will face some resistance. Similar to traditionalists that prefer to walk inside the bank and stand in line to deposit their checks, there will be some patients that are not immediately comfortable with online interactions. However, soon we will see corner store kiosks where we can view and access our medical records, and communicate with physicians and office staff. It’s already started.

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Peter Kuhn is President of MEDSEEK, a provider of enterprise eHealth solutions.

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Clinical Portal Vendor MEDSEEK leads in 2008 KLAS® Rankings

MEDSEEK Leads KLAS® Portals Segment as of August 22, 2008.

Birmingham, AL (PRWEB) September 4, 2008 -- MEDSEEK, a leading provider of enterprise portal management solutions, announced today it leads in KLAS® rankings for its Clinical Web Portal software solution.

KLAS® is an independent healthcare market research firm that gathers data about clinical portal solutions from CIO's, Directors, and other healthcare providers about software functionality, solution performance, technical support and service. According to the August 26, 2008 Platinum KLAS ® database, MEDSEEK has the highest current performance ratings, outscoring all other clinical portal solutions.

Peter Kuhn, President of MEDSEEK commented, "MEDSEEK's superior ranking in the KLAS ® report highlights our effort to provide comprehensive eHealth solutions." Kuhn added, "We frequently receive high praise from our clients on our ability to deliver complex installations on time and on budget. The KLAS rating validates our reputation as an organization that consistently delivers on our commitments."

The KLAS® database also reports anonymous comments from providers who are using the eConnect Clinical Portal solution: "The implementation process was very smooth. It was very well planned and organized and was executed according to that plan. The planning was very thorough and there were few surprises and gotchas along the way. The implementation staff MEDSEEK provided was very knowledgeable. They were excellent communicators. We were able to install the system on time and within budget.” (Quoted from a healthcare provider interviewed by KLAS, see KLAS® commentary August 26, 2008.)

"MEDSEEK eConnect is the perfect portal solution for our physicians who do not want to learn the complexities of using the PACS and hospital clinical systems. This product is a single sign-on system that helps doctors get to patient information quickly. We have heard nothing negative from the physicians. All of the feedback about using eConnect for pulling results has been good, and the doctors love being able to pull images by using a URL." (From the KLAS ® database, August 26, 2008.)

Michelle Wickham, Research Director for KLAS stated, "KLAS applauds those vendors who utilize KLAS® data to understand and respond to their customers' needs. We are pleased when the data shows that a vendor is performing well, and we plan gather data on an ongoing basis to continuously monitor vendor performance in this segment."

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About MEDSEEK:
Birmingham, Ala.-based MEDSEEK provides healthcare organizations with Enterprise eHealth solutions to fully engage and strengthen relationships with key constituents - physicians, patients, employees, and consumers. By connecting information and communities to foster an enhanced experience with the organization, hospitals will improve community advocacy, revenue and patient acquisition/retention, physician relations, and clinical decision making.

MEDSEEK's comprehensive technology platform and strategic consulting services create the infrastructure and provide the thought leadership for hospitals to deliver the most powerful Portal solutions. With more than ten years' experience and 600+ hospital customers, MEDSEEK has the experience and expertise to meet the diverse needs of the healthcare community. MEDSEEK also maintains offices in California and Mississippi. In Canada, Medseek is distributed by Agfa HealthCare. For more information, visit MEDSEEK or call 888-MEDSEEK.

About KLAS:
KLAS is a research firm specializing in monitoring and reporting the performance of healthcare vendors. KLAS' mission is to improve delivery, by independently measuring vendor performance for the benefit of our healthcare provider partners, consultants, investors, and vendors. Working together with executives from over 4500 hospitals and over 2500 clinics, KLAS delivers timely reports, trends, and statistics, which provide a solid overview of vendor performance in the industry. KLAS measures performance of software, professional services, and medical equipment vendors. For more information, go to www.KLASresearch.com, email marketing@KLASresearch.com, or call 1-800-920-4109 to speak with a KLAS representative. The data referenced was retrieved Tuesday, August 26, 2008 and fluctuates daily. Copyright 2002-2008 KLAS Enterprises, LLC. All rights reserved.

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