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| eHealth coming to Canada |
August 25, 2005 |
By Michael Martineau
New technology will improve the delivery of healthcare.
When asked to conjure an image of the typical physician, most people will describe a person wearing a white lab coat, with a stethoscope around the neck and a chart in hand. This simple image neatly captures three key activities performed by the doctor, namely, the collection of data (using instruments such as the stethoscope), the recording of information (usually onto a paper chart) and the analysis of the information (using the doctor’s training and experience) to make a diagnosis.
Unfortunately, as healthcare grows ever more complex, the information needed to diagnose a patient’s condition is increasingly scattered across myriad different systems, some of which are electronic, many of which are still paperbased.
eHealth, the application of information and communications technology to improve healthcare services delivery, offers the promise of simplifying this complex situation so that a healthcare provider can quickly and easily retrieve all information about a specific patient, perhaps even on a device that mimics the traditional paper chart.
Why is eHealth important?
A 1999 Institute of Medicine report, “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System,” concluded that preventable hospital-based medical errors are the eighth-leading cause of death in the United States. An estimated 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die each year from medical errors such as incorrect medication administration, the equivalent to one passenger jet crashing and killing all occupants each and every day of the year. A similar situation exists in Canada.
In addition to an alarming incidence of preventable deaths, the cost of providing healthcare in Canada has been increasing, on average, six per cent per year. Assuming no significant change to the underlying factors driving healthcare costs, the Conference Board of Canada predicts that by 2020 some provinces might be spending more than half of their annual operating budgets.
Faced with a need to protect patient safety as well as to increase productivity as a partial means of addressing rising costs, healthcare, like other industries, is turning to Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Although ICT has been used for decades in hospitals, it has largely been employed in “back-office” applications, with front-line healthcare providers relying on pen and paper. By integrating ICT into front-line healthcare service delivery processes, eHealth can help reduce medical errors by making health information more readily accessible. Further, eHealth can reduce costs by saving time, reducing duplication and improving efficiency, savings that can reduce healthcare costs by as much as 10 per cent.
eHealth trends
While every Canadian citizen has access to publicly funded healthcare, the manner in which the healthcare system is structured, funded and governed varies from province to province. This situation can best be described as “variations on a theme” and it extends to eHealth, with every province setting its own priorities and timetable for eHealth adoption.
Notwithstanding the provincial variations, several major healthcare trends are emerging that have a direct impact on eHealth adoption:
- the consolidation of healthcare services delivery, either through hospital amalgamation or regionalization l the vertical integration of healthcare services delivery across the continuum of care, primarily through regionalization
- third-party provisioning of eHealth service through various mechanisms including outsourcing, shared service organizations and partnering between several healthcare organizations l strong senior-level support for eHealth within healthcare organizations, regional health authorities and provincial ministries of health
- alignment of provincial eHealth agendas with priorities set by Canada Health Infoway, a federal organization created to foster and accelerate the development of pan-Canadian electronic health information systems.
Modern processes
Effective healthcare service delivery is heavily dependent upon timely access to relevant patient information. Existing manual, paper-based processes simply cannot keep pace with the explosion of information and ever more complex diagnostic and treatment options. eHealth will provide patients and healthcare providers alike with the tools needed to easily and quickly access the information needed to make timely and effective decisions, thereby increasing patient safety and improving overall healthcare system efficiency.
Michael Martineau is a senior associate at the Branham Group Inc.
The Branham Group recently completed a ranking of Canada’s Top 25 E-health ICT (Information and Communications Technology companies. Check out the results at http://www.backbonemag.com/ehealth and http://www.branhamgroup.com/ehealth
Communicating the benefits of technology in healthcare
Allstream offers a unique blend of communications technology, IT services and systems integration to create end-to-end solutions in the healthcare environment.
Increasingly the healthcare sector is challenged to improve patient safety and health outcomes while reducing costs. Key to meeting these goals is the ability to integrate disparate information sources, automate paper-based processes, coordinate services, provide quality services over distances and meet privacy requirements. Communications technology underpins many of the efficiency improvements that can be made in the healthcare system. Unique to Allstream is its expertise in both applications and networking, allowing it to provide innovative solutions to organizations that address specific challenges. As a professional services and communications company with a wealth of expertise in networking, Allstream creates end-to-end solutions that link different parts of the healthcare infrastructure more effectively.
Allstream offers solutions that address these challenges by helping healthcare organizations collaborate in real time, provide integrated healthcare, track patients and assets, and better manage patient information while addressing security and privacy requirements.
The federal government and most of the provinces have enacted privacy laws that protect the personal information of patients.
“Ensuring the right people have access to the right information is an integral part of our solution,” said Doug Michaelides, senior vice president of marketing at Allstream. For a large province, Allstream has built a system that registers all workers in health organizations such as hospitals, clinics, community care facilities, and doctors’ offices, enabling them to access different applications and information with a single password based on their privileges.
The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure that Allstream provides enables better care coordination services for the healthcare industry. For example, the Allstream Collaboration Suite (ACS) provides healthcare workers with the ability to share ideas and solve problems in real time, perform group scheduling and share documents. ACS includes features like instant messaging, a personalized portal interface and a document repository.
“A key challenge facing the healthcare industry is that there is so much information that must be accessed by many people in order to do their jobs effectively,” Doug said. “ACS is one way of sharing information between professionals, according to their skills and requirements.”
The value of ACS is further strengthened by the use of mobile devices, allowing physicians to be reached at any location, enabling them to participate in a group interaction with other healthcare workers to provide real-time integrated care.
Along with these mobile devices, Allstream also works with handheld computers and “Digital Ink” technology—the latter involving an electronic pen that records strokes on paper for transmission to a central database. “Typically we’re seeing this technology used in patient assessments upon initial admission,” Doug said. “We’re also seeing it used for record keeping while monitoring a patient’s vital signs.”
Emergency medical services are using Allstream Digital Ink and computer tablets to communicate to hospitals the condition of the patient so that the hospital can get staff, equipment and facilities ready.
It is well understood point-of-care technologies can lead to more efficiency and to services that enhance the patient experience. Telehealth technologies are being used to reduce the number of visits rural patients make to urban hospitals. A telehealth solution can be a vital link between small towns and larger health centres. Not only can telehealth increase efficiency by allowing doctors to see more patients but it can improve healthcare, as evidenced by cutting doctor visits by 20 per cent, and hospital outpatient visits by 15 per cent.
In general people have better health outcomes if they are in their own community. Allstream telehealth solutions offer connectivity, video link devices and IT-enabled patient monitoring equipment such as devices for blood pressure, pulse, blood oxygen level and blood sugar.
The quality of care can also be improved in any medical facility using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tagging technology.
Using this technology, Allstream’s healthcare customers can do more than manage inventory. RFID enables complete supply chain management to provide a higher level of patient safety. As an example, RFID tags can be placed on surgery kits, medications and other equipment, ensuring the right equipment and tools are in place at the right time.
Underpinning all of this is Allstream’s own services infrastructure, which includes a coast-to-coast IP network and business continuity services.
At Allstream, deploying innovation in healthcare technology is only one part of the puzzle—the rest of the picture is assembled from reliability, quality of service and network performance.
Allstream is one of Canada’s leading national business communication solutions providers with a world-class portfolio of Connectivity, Managed Services and Professional Services. Focused on the business and public sector market, Allstream collaborates with customers to create tailored solutions that meet their unique needs.
Allstream is a division of Manitoba Telecom Services Inc., Canada’s third largest communications provider (trading symbol: MBT).
To find out more about Allstream Healthcare Solutions, email philip.sylvain@allstream.com
Setting the standard for excellence in healthcare
A world-class electronic healthcare system is only as good as the standards it is built on.
Momentum Healthware is helping ensure medical centres nationwide speak the same language.
Canada’s healthcare system sits on the cusp of a huge growth period. As ICT (information and communications technology) continues to offer more opportunities for the medical industry, companies like Momentum Healthware are rising to the challenge.
Formed in 1995, Momentum has proven to be one of the more innovative providers of health information systems. In addition to producing world-class software, it is also pushing the development of software standards to help build a healthcare industry that is second to none.
CEO Charles LaFlèche has taken the company from a standing start to $8 million revenue per annum in just 10 years, and 25 per cent of that comes from the U.S., reflecting LaFlèche’s strong conviction that Canada should be developing exportable healthcare technology.
He cites the views of Dr. Henry Friesen, a former president of Canada’s Medical Research Council and the founding chair of Genome Canada, who has promoted research and development funding to make Canadian healthcare an example of excellence for others.
To this end, Momentum has introduced a variety of products designed to improve the efficiency of small to medium healthcare operations. With a strong base in Microsoft technology, it has developed dietary systems geared towards nursing homes, and an electronic health records system that enables nurses to manage everything from day-to-day assessments through to complex medical projects such as hip replacements. Its expertise in assessment technology also led it to introduce minimum data set (MDS) software into the Canadian market. This enhances the efficiency of patient assessments and enables nurses to develop profiles of patients when they enter the healthcare system, and then develop a care plan that can be measured against the assessment.
“We were instrumental in helping academics and the people that wrote the assessment tools within the health system. And now it’s slowly becoming a national standard,” LaFlèche said. The company has sold MDS software into Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C.
These systems complement its hospital management software, which enables small to medium-sized hospitals to administer processes including admissions, discharges and transfers. Together, they serve as an example of healthcare automation technology that two years ago was only successful with early adopters. “Now it’s becoming mainstream,” LaFlèche said, with a smile. “We’re getting to the fun part.”
For more information, call 1-80 0-231-3836, or visit our Web site at http://www.momentumhealthware.com
Delivering the right ICT skills
With so many technological developments transforming Canada’s Health sector, the right mix of business and technical skills is vital.
If ever there was a time when Canada’s health system was undergoing rapid and revolutionary change, it is now. Advances in technology are making it possible to tackle healthcare issues with unprecedented solutions. Specialists and patients are videoconferencing over thousands of kilometres; multi-site hospitals are sharing patient data as though they were in the same building; and internet portals are offering physicians clinical information in more depth than ever before possible. But in order to make this happen, skilled technological expertise is needed behind the scenes.
Behind the scenes is where Ajilon Consulting is most effective. In 2004, $18.6 million in revenue was generated from healthcare ICT services, reflecting our role as a key facilitator in Canada’s healthcare sector. “Ajilon Consulting is one of the world’s largest ICT companies, with over 60 offices worldwide, including 10 across Canada.
We play a supporting role, “said Senior Manager Barrie Marfleet.
“Our goal is to ensure the success of our clients.”
When a large public sector healthcare organization was faced with the prospect of building an infrastructure from the ground up, Ajilon was there. We put together a consortium of companies providing quality, skilled IT professionals to project manage all aspects including interviewing and hiring, management development, website design, and public relation campaigns.
Ajilon has also successfully developed a 200 seat Help Desk Centre in the pharmaceutical industry, supporting 11 languages in a 24/7 environment.
Ajilon Consulting has been providing this kind of exceptional service for over 30 years. Whether supplemental ICT resources are required, or a complete project solution is needed, our proven expertise and skilled consultants have the requirements to add value to your team.
To help Canada’s healthcare organizations become centres of excellence, we have developed the following services to fully address the challenges being faced today:
- Supplemental IT Services
- Service Desk
- Functional Outsourcing
- Management Consulting
- Systems Development & Integration
- Software Quality Assurance
For superior ICT talent, Ajilon Consulting has the national infrastructure to assist with your critical initiatives and prepare for your future requirements.
Our core competency is providing the right skills at the right time.
For more information, contact Barrie Marfleet at 1-800-842-5907, or visit our Web site at http://www.ajilonconsulting.com
Xenos delivers a healthy change to records management
In the health industry, records must be accurate, private and quickly communicated. Xenos is helping bring paper-based records into the electronic age.
While healthcare technologies are evolving at a breakneck pace, many medical institutions are still using antiquated paper-based processes to administer patient records. Some forward-looking organizations are beginning to realize the value of document management systems to make processes more efficient.
Xenos, a Canadian company with unique expertise in building electronic document management systems, is helping organizations jump into the 21st century.
One such institution is Grey Bruce Health Services of Ontario.
The consortium of five hospitals used the Xenos software solution to create an electronic document management system that transmits patient reports between the hospital, regional clinics, and physicians’ offices. Previously, patient information was faxed or sent through the mail, meaning sometimes doctors would have to wait two or three days for the information. "With the new system there is no more waiting for patient reports”, said Rob Croft, director of system integration and projects for GBHS. “We now have the ability to immediately add new physicians and patients, and within minutes the information is online and available in real time.”
Aside from speed, document management systems ensure patient record accuracy. Electronic transmission eliminates data entry error and the risk of smudged ink from faulty toner cartridges or fax machines, meaning information such as prescribed medication doses are communicated safely and effectively.
But safety lies not just in accuracy. Privacy is vital in a medical context for ethical and legal reasons. Paper-based records can go astray or be glimpsed by onlookers during transit. Transmitting them over a network ensures they get to their destination unseen by prying eyes.
Apart from the environmental benefits of reduced paper usage, electronic document management also offers financial gains. More efficient information management leads to financial savings, compounded by reduced expenditure on paper and the smaller space needed to store electronic records. One hospital which modernized its records management system with Xenos estimates that it has saved 3,000 hours of nurses’ time, along with $600,000 in paper and toner supplies in the last year.
In addition to these immediate advantages, electronic document management prepares hospitals for other, longer-term benefits. For example, document management provides the opportunity to integrate disparate information systems. And as the electronic health record initiative rolls out, those medical institutions that have already invested in electronic documents will be one step ahead of the game. Clearly, Xenos is helping Canada’s medical institutions use information that is worth much more than the paper it is written on.
To find out how your IT team can start saving paper, contact us at: 1-800-815-9470 or http://www.xenos.com/healthcare
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