MEDITECH Customers Share Transformation Projects and Success Stories
at e-Health Conference
(6/08/2007)

MEDITECH's interoperability capabilities and how we are helping join together healthcare organizations, was of keen interest to attendees who met and networked with MEDITECH representatives at the annual e-Health Conference, held May 27-30 in Quebec City. The informal conversations of the day fittingly tied in with the event's overall theme, Paths to Transformation, which was reflected both in our booth and in the many presentations given during the educational sessions. We'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of our customers and those prospects who stopped by to check out our latest offerings at our booth. "A great deal of interest surrounded our Advanced Clinical Systems, including the tools and extended decision support capabilities we provide for physicians, nurses, and other clinicians," says Greg Hoeft, Canadian sales director, MEDITECH. "These solutions lay a solid foundation for customers as they work toward achieving their interoperability and transformation goals."   Record Number of Customer Presentations More than a dozen sessions by MEDITECH customers representing five provinces presented their organizations' transformation projects and accomplishments. Many of the projects and the models shared served to highlight the MEDITECH system's integration and interoperability capabilities.

We've listed some of the highlights of this year's conference presentations below.

Christine Couturier, RSHIP Coordinator, Community Health Systems, spoke on "Integrating the Community in a Shared Electronic Health Record." Christine provided a history of RSHIP, including the successful deployment of an integrated MEDITECH HCIS and MEDITECH's EMR-the single electronic health record deployed across the seven rural regions of Alberta (over 100 facilities), including the non-acute or community side of health care.

With a project that was well-funded and exceptionally focused (due to laying out an overall strategy upfront), RSHIP was able to achieve this goal much faster than the average timeframe it would take to integrate seven health regions within any given province. Christine discussed how the interoperability between RSHIP and the two non-MEDITECH regions in Alberta was established with very few issues despite the disparate system environments.

Currently, the organization is implementing MEDITECH's Advanced Clinical System. Christine highlighted the "lessons learned" including, "Don't wait to tend to apprehensions amongst clinicians"-address them immediately instead-as well as the importance of adhering to "Standards, Standards, Standards!"

Bruce Pye, Director of Information Management, Quinte Health Care in Southeastern Ontario, discussed the challenges and possibilities for the EHR as well as insights on implementing electronic clinical documentation. Terrie Tucker, MBA, BA (Economics), Director of Decision Support of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Ontario, presented "Doing it Right - Achieving the e-Health Vision as We Work With Our External Partners."

In a presentation titled, "Towards Physicians and Ardent EHR Consumers," representatives from Eastern Health Regional Authority (Newfoundland & Labrador) highlighted how they worked cooperatively with physicians to prepare for deployment of advanced clinical systems, including use of the physician desktop, CPOE, and clinical documentation across the region. R. James Brown, Director Health Information Systems and Informatics; Dr. Justice Arthur, Chief of Staff/Medical Director, Burin Medical Center; and Ann English, Management Consultant, detailed how the organization came together with their physicians, involving them early to understand the benefits and goals, as well as deployment methodologies. Focusing on "Change Management," they involved their physicians early on and paid close attention to help them avoid confusion. For example, they made sure not to overwhelm their physicians with technical information that wasn't critical for performing their jobs.

A presentation by Virginia Ellis, BScN, RN, Applications and Informatics Specialist, Royal Victoria Hospital in Ontario, went beyond clinical care with "Health Outcomes for Better Information and Care - Beyond Documentation!" Royal Victoria Hospital in Ontario is an early adopter that implemented the documentation of HOBIC elements in the MEDITECH PCS application, going beyond the documentation process and becoming a true transformation of practice.

Anne Baldwin, Regional Manager Diagnostic Imaging, reflected on the experiences at Interior Health Authority (British Columbia) in deploying Diagnostic Imaging. She also discussed the close integration of images and reports to authorized users anywhere in British Columbia through their longitudinal electronic patient record.

Andrea Seymour, Vice President of Health Information, and Chief Information Officer, and Janet Thomas, Senior Business Analyst, of River Valley Health in New Brunswick, focused on extending information systems beyond the core HCIS environment, by building on the province's "One-Patient-One-Record" initiative. They have started rolling out clinical management software into the community health centres, and sharing information between the MEDITECH regional HCIS systems and the CHCs running non-MEDITECH systems to allow better and faster access to patient information, thus improving quality of care.

Roger Girard, Integrated Vice-President and Regional CIO, presented the process of developing the e-Health strategy and tactical implementation plans for the entire Local Health Integrated Network (LHIN). This LHIN encompasses the hospitals and continuing care access centres of the Hamilton-Niagara-Haldimand-Brant area. Roger outlined the importance of sharing information, sharing resources, and inclusion of vendor partners like MEDITECH in their entire planning process.

 

MEDITECH
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www.meditech.com