portal communications & the promise of e-health
TRANSCRIPT
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B R E A K T H R O U G H S O L U T I O N S I N C A N A D I A N H E A L T H C A R E
eHealth Communications
eHealth Evolution
A roadmap to success
The Portal Solution
Rapid, real-time data access,greater efficiency, and increased
patient/physician collaboration
Web Portals
Definition & Description
Its not the Portal of the future.
Its the future of the Portal.
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As a result of these efforts, people
everywhere are increasingly benefiting
from web-based information technology,
and savvy web-users are finding
the outdated information systems
traditionally associated with delivering
healthcare nonsensical. Antiquated
systems and processes combined with
poor information flow are increasingly
resulting in under-use, and misuse of
healthcare services. Add to this the
pressure from the full spectrum of
consumers, payers, and policy makers,
and all eyes are on the sources
of wasted resources, operational
inefficiencies, and unsafe care.
The call for a significant restructuring
of our healthcare system is coming
from the highest levels of government,
demanding that the industry take
advantage of the time, cost, and resource
efficiencies promised by healthcare
information technology including
electronic health records (EHR) and
web-based information exchange.
To put the fundamentals in place in
Canada will cost between $10-billionand $12-billion, or about $300 for every
Canadian citizen, according to a study by
consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.
However, returns would be enormous,
amounting to about $6-billion a year,
in the form of improved quality of care,
better safety and greater productivity
as Mr. Richard C. Alvarez, President
and Chief Executive Officer of Canada
Health Infoway identified.1
Healthcare executives have a unique
challenge in responding to the eHealth
call to arms, as even new systems may
also create inefficiencies and risk for
patients if not utilized properly.
Somehow, leaders must enable their
organizations to evolve while protecting
the financial stability of the institution
and the well-being of the patients. This
includes providing the modern tools,
training and support to move forward
and evolve their health delivery
platform. This can be accomplished
incrementally by growing the
universal understanding of viable,
effective technologies and sharing our
successes and failures as an industry.
There is no longer any choice about
joining the eHealth revolution. It is
becoming the rule, not the exception
and its gaining momentum everywhere.
This is why tools have been introduced
to help realize the promise of eHealth.A proven portal solution not only
leverages, enhances, and augments
existing IT investments, but also evolves
information delivery platforms towards
a more open, vendor-neutral, patient-
centric environment.
1. Canada Health Infoway provides guidelines and standards for Canadian IT adoption. Infoway's mandate is to provide fully interoperable electronic healthrecords for half of all Canadians by 2009, and the Health Council of Canada has called for full coverage by 2010.
1
Foreward 1
Canadas Health S ystem 2
Web Portals 3
Portal Communication Solution 4
eHealth Evolution 5
Four Underserved Areas 7
The Portal Promise 8
Technology That Overcomes 10Adoption Issues
Case Study: 12
Hamilton Health Sciences
The Future of eHealth 14
Table Of Contents
B R E A K T H R O U G H S O L U T I O N S I N C A N A D I A N H E A L T H C A R E
The past few years have been busy ones for those involved
with automation of processes within the healthcare industry.
Portal Communications:
The Promise Of eHealth
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Canada's health system is a tangled,
highly fragmented network that often
wastes a great number of resources by
duplicating efforts, leaving unaccountable
gaps, and failing to build on the strengths
of our health professionals and clinical
expertise. Even though Canadas health
care delivery carries a significantly
higher price tag than more than most
other industrialized nations, Canadians
only receive only about half of the
recommended care for that investment.
With an aging population, extended
wait times, and chronic conditions
reaching epidemic proportions, our
healthcare system will not survive
without radical change.
eHealth, the application of web-based
information technology to healthcare,
can profoundly change the way the
business of healthcare is conducted
making it safer, more affordable, and
significantly more efficient. However,
transforming traditional modes of
delivering care will require Health Care
organizations (HCO) to take advantage
of the enormous potential offered by
information technology in far more
complex ways. Previously, eHealth
was stalled by interoperability issues
and a lack of workflow-driven, secure
information exchange. Today however,
progressive technology and innovative
solutions are enabling unprecedented
advancements.
The relatively brief history of Health
Information Technology (HIT) has
taught organizations the high costs of
failure, which has caused Health Care
Organizations (HCOs) to prudently
proceed with guarded optimism.
Although there is recognition of the
benefits of eHealth, when combined
with a market already crowded with
HIT vendors attempting to help HCOs
realize a return on investment (ROI,)
it becomes increasingly difficult to
identify a vendor with a meaningful
track record. As such, the majority of
Health Care Organizations have been
watching the progress of vanguard
organizations before they commit their
time and money.
Waiting to join the eHealth movementhas its own disadvantages. Besides
prolonging current inefficiencies,
laggard organizations may miss an
important window of opportunity,
and the benefits of adopting eHealth
strategies are too great to ignore.
For HCOs determined to take advantage
of the current Infoway driven EHR
environment, the next imperative action
is to outline an appropriate technical
platform for their eHealth strategy.
Fundamentally, organizations are
seeking a platform that allows the
seamless delivery of information
across the continuum of healthcare.
Fortunately, this objective can be met
without cost-prohibitive, universal
replacement of existing HIT. Moving
forwards with a portal communications
strategy can bind the information
technology of disparate facilities andstakeholders into an interactive user
community using advanced, but proven,
web portal technologies.
22.Frost & Sullivan (http://www.healthcareandlifesciencesIT.frost.com) from Growing Integration and Need for Single Point of Contact DrivesHealthcare IT Platforms Market, 2007.
According to Frost & Sullivan2,
increasing integration is
creating the need for a single
point of contact to healthcare IT
(HIT) systems, which in turn, is
driving the eHealth market.
Canadas Health System:
A tangled, highly fragmented network
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B R E A K T H R O U G H S O L U T I O N S I N C A N A D I A N H E A L T H C A R E
3
Web Portals:
Definition and description
Most HCOs serve a variety of
stakeholder communities, including
providers, payers, patients, employees,
and consumers. Each of these stake-
holder communities benefits from a
portal that is targeted specifically to
their needs, aggregating information
of value for them and allowing them
to communicate freely with the host
organization and each other.
For the hosting HCO, a portal is an
integration tool that incorporates
service and data management
applications with workflows and
business processes to present a
unified, personalized, and streamlined
gateway to their enterprise for its
stakeholders. The HCO establishes a
portal strategy to offer timely access to
real-time information resulting in better
customer service that is accessible from
a single point of entry, regardless of
which system generates the information
or where the information resides. While
a provider portal, patient portal,
employee portal, and a consumer portal
each appear independent of the other,
they are clearly interrelated. Since
healthcare consumers may be patients,
employees, or even providers, their
needs will overlap. Therefore, each
stakeholder may require access to the
others data as well as additional
common data sources.
A portal solution can serve to
aggregate information stored in
disparate, incompatible systems using
a Service-oriented architecture (SOA).
SOA describes a product architecture
that allows tight integration with
underlying applications, without
requiring system interoperability.
This also allows users to access software
functions independent of the underlying
platform and/or programming
language. It permits services to be
rolled into larger applications that can
be incorporated into portals, without
locking the enterprise into a specific
vendor. While the SOA concept has
been around for quite some time,
emerging standards-based integration
technologies like Web services and XML
have just recently made it practical. The
benefit for your healthcare organization
is clear a SOA enables eHealth while
protecting the enterprises investment
in legacy software. As organizations
search for viable tactical path to leverage
a service-oriented architecture, many
can use portal products as a first step.
A portal incorporates data
management applications
with workflows and business
processes to present aunified, personalized and
streamlined gateway to
your enterprise.
From the user perspective, a
web portal is technology that
allows an individual or user
community to gain convenient
access to a broad range of
information and services
through their web browser.
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In spite of the differences in type and
format of information and services each
group requires, there is significant
overlap and common desire for:
+ A more positive Physician/Patient
experience between clinicians
and patients
+ A more satisfying and effective
clinical experience for patients
and caregivers
+ A more transparent technology
experience for all of the stake
holders, but particularly the care
givers and IT staff, easy to use
and easy to maintain
+ Better IT cost control to make the
CIO and CFOs job of keeping
costs down easier
+ More referrals and admits
because of streamlining and
efficiency improvements that
expand a facilitys capacity
+ Brand advancement, fulfilling the
goals of the marketing department
and CEO of improving community
awareness and market position
+ Better recruiting retention
because of more effective use of
staff time and skills, and easier
access to human resources and
other employee information
+ Improved operations for
administrators and clinicians,
building on existing skills and
significantly reducing
unnecessary mundane tasks
However, while many vendors
offer partial solutions, few offer a
comprehensive portal communication
solution. Legacy HIS/CIS vendors offer
applications targeting information
access and management, and while
they improve the physician/patient
experience and provide operational
efficiencies, the needs of the other
stakeholders are not addressed.
Traditional web vendors, on the other
hand, tend to focus on content
management systems that excel at
promoting an organizations brand but
leave the needs clinical and operations
stakeholders underserved. Somewhat
more comprehensive, electronic
medical record (EMR) vendors offer
vital elements of the big picture
solution, but cannot accomplish
the complete transformation that
browser-based systems promise.
4
Portal Solution:
Empowering communicationBy empowering patients,
providing rapid, real-time data
access, greater efficiency, and
increased patient/physician
collaboration, everyone benefits.
Although eHealth applications serve the needs of many
different stakeholders, there are four major stakeholder groups,
which illustrate the value of this solution: patients, physicians,
consumers and employees.
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The Gartner Group3 has identified five
levels of eHealth development using
Portals, the elements that comprise
them, and what it takes to move from
one level to the next (see Figure 1).
Health Care Organizations
continue to significantly useportal products to build and
deploy a variety of customer,
citizen, partner and employ-
ee-facing enterprise portals.
Portals have evolved through four
generations of technology and are
embarking on their fifth generation. In
the beginning, eHealth bore relatively
simple websites that provided new
levels of information accessibility to
healthcare consumers. As the technology
evolved to Level 2, searchable directories
and more interactive features were
added, providing dynamic new options
for HCO marketing and administration
departments. It was possible to promote
classes and services, help people find
reliable current health information and
appropriate specialists, make human
resources information readily available
to employees, and collect and manage
data using the Internet.
Since Generation 2, portals have
leveraged service-oriented (SOA)
capabilities. Generation 2 portals
provided a rudimentary method of
composite application assemblyknown
as interportlet communication.
Organizations can use interportlet
communication to build composite
applications by linking portlets related
to a specific business process. This type
of composite application is referred to
as "on the glass" because the integration
is at the presentation layer rather thandeep in the business logic. This
integration approach is effective for
user-driven processes, and advanced
enterprise portals use interportlet
communication extensively.
Level 3 applications required a broader
revolution within healthcare from paper
to electronic medical records, which
was reliant on emerging data standards
and the willingness of HCOs to empowertheir users with more control and access.
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eHealth Evolution:
Into the future
3. Gartner Group 15 July, 2005 Study | ID Number: G00126329 | Portals Provide a Fast Track to SOA.
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Generation 3 portals enabled systems to
handle basic Web services. These portal
products could consume Web services.
The addition of workflow, which is a
feature of most portal products,
introduced a new way to orchestrate
composite applications.
Over time, the experiences of the early
adopters and results of pilot projects
generated sufficient results to compel
cautious HCOs to pursue the promise
of eHealth. With Level 3 adoption no
longer stalled by technological limitations
and the pervasive wait-and-see mentality,
the next wave in eHealth is cresting.
Transformational web portals will offer
business process management with
workflow automation, alerts, and
reminders, integration with patient
records, medical device uploads and a
host of other equally exciting advances.
Together, the unified data resources
and user interaction will radically alter
best-practices for patient care and
healthcare efficiency.
(Continued on next page)
6
Figure 1: Five Generations Of eHealth Portals
Generation 5
+ Advanced collaboration
+ Orchestration
Generation 4
+ Multichannel interaction
+ Composite applications
+Personal content
+Support for JSR 168 and WSRP
Generation 3
+Advanced personalization
+Multiple portals
+Process integration
+Abstraction layers
Generation 2
+Robuse application framework
+Collaboration
Generation 1
+Content mgmt./aggregation
+Search/categorization
+Service-oriented business application support
+Syndication
+Advanced web services
+ Universal federation
+Micro sites
+Knowledge management
+Web services
+ Offline support
+ Federated search
+Mobile and wireless
+Management framework
+Personalization
+Lightweight application framework
4.17th Annual HIMSS Leadership Survey sponsored by ACS Healthcare Solutions.
ProcessIntegration
Application/DataIntegration
Information Access/Content Aggregation
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In February 2006, a survey of
healthcare CIOs ranked the area for
which they would be most likely to offer
increased functionality via their web
presence. Offering patients the abilityto schedule appointments through
their website was most frequently
identified, followed by utilizing a
physician portal link and providing
consumer health information. However,
only a handful of the CIOs report that
their website is used to offer patients
secure and authenticated access to
medical records.
Finding themselves repeatedly on thecutting edge of eHealth, vanguard
organizations are evaluating the
appropriate technical platform for
Level 4 applications. With Generation
4, portals started to leverage advanced
Web services. This included the ability
to provide Web services, as well as
consume them. It also supported the
first Web services standard for
portlets, Web Services for Remote
Portlets (WSRP), which enables oneportal to consume a portlet from a
different portal, using Web services
protocols. Thus, portal pages could
include local and remote portlets, all
supporting a single set of processes.
Generation 5 is emerging (see Figure
1.) Advanced features include support
for business process management
(BPM), service-oriented applications
(SOBAs) and orchestration, criticalfeatures to support advanced composite
applications. Business Process Execution
Language will become the standard
orchestration language for portal products
and will extend beyond the capabilities
of their current workflow features.
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Consumerism
Rather than being passive participants in their own healthcare, todays patients
are looking for return on investment and driven by the spiraling cost of
health insurance and growing out-of-pocket expenses.
Clinical
Advances in service delivery and clinical outcomes through better adherence
to clinical protocols and more informed decision-making, reductions in medical
errors, decreased morbidity and mortality, and expedited recovery times.
Financial
Cost reductions and revenue enhancements from quicker charge capture and
shorter billing cycles, productivity gains from all types and levels of staff.
Organizational
Improvements in stakeholder satisfaction through shorter wait times,
better access to reliable healthcare information, and better relationships
with clinicians; higher productivity from increased procedure volume,
reductions in the average length of stay, quicker transaction processing
turnover, lower administrative staff and resource requirements; more effective
risk mitigation, and increased adherence to federal, state, and accreditation
organization standards.5
Four areas underserved
despite great promise
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A portal strategy should be
built on a stable, secure
framework, offer single sign-on,
single-patient/ single-view
access to all information
using a coherent system ofportals simultaneously
serving the needs of the
wide variety of stakeholders.
A comprehensive portal communications
solution should include broad-based
applications through:
+Flexible, easy-to-use web content
management tools for rapid
application development by both
non-technical staff and programmers
+Interoperability between incompatible
legacy HIS systems, and real-time
data access
+Secure communication allowing
patients and providers to
communicate conveniently
+Integrated third party applications for
additional functionality
85. 2002 Center for IT Leadership, Doug Johnston MA, Eric Pan MD; Blackford Middleton, MD, MPH, MSc
Current, partial solutions can be made whole with interoperable
portals through which all healthcare stakeholders will
exchange information and engage the enterprise. Enterprise
information portals are intended to consolidate a vast array of
information from a multitude of sources onto a single screen.
Portal technology enables different IT systems and software
applications to communicate, to exchange data accurately,
effectively, securely and consistently, and to use the information
that has been exchanged.
The portal promise:
Information consolidation
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Elusive Return On Investment
Delays and patchwork systems negatively
impact the organizations ROI. Still,
adoption continues to be spotty, despite
incentives. In part, the gradual adoption
curve can be ascribed to common
complaints of HIT; accompanying
workflow and systems integrations
require process changes that can be
intimidating. Reengineering the way
work is done presents challenges that
extend far beyond use of the technology.
Changing the enterprise culture and
convincing busy professionals to adopt
and learn new systems are essential
but challenging components.
A study conducted in 2001 found 121
administrators and physicians working
for HCOs agreed that in order to remain
competitive, providers must move
toward interactive consumer web self-
service capabilities (e.g. scheduling
services, pre-registering for services
and bill payment) and online physician
patient communication. However, the
reluctance to proceed was tied
predominantly to a lack of funding
followed by a lack of commitment, fear,
politics and other intangibles that must
be overcome if an organization is to be
able to achieve the advanced website
functionality. These findings were
reiterated in the 2006 HIMSS CIO
Leadership survey, which found that for
the sixth consecutive year, respondents
identified a lack of adequate financial
support for IT as the most significant
barrier to a successful implementation
of IT at their organization.
Certainly, ROI is an important factor in
any healthcare IT acquisition. A prudent
capital investment is measured by its
contribution to the sustained financial
strength of the organization. However,
the use of capital assets for eHealth
objectives cannot be measured solely
on the balance sheet. When capital
investment improves clinical outcomes,
reduces preventable medical errors, and
eliminates common sources of waste,
the return is evident in healthier patients.
Clinical System Interoperability
The fragmentation of legacy HIT
systems causes interoperability issues
that can undermine an organizations
confidence in their ability to successfully
implement a comprehensively integrated
web solution. The data systems needed
for an outpatient setting require a
different level of sophistication than
those that regulate admissions,
discharges, and transfers within in a
large hospital. Each system is definedby unique vendor standards, some of
them decades old. These hurdles make
a seamless, rapid data sharing format
seem out of reach. Integration can be
tackled with the latest web technology.
Using a virtual electronic health record
(EHR) model, any HCO can connect
underlying systems rapidly and cost
effectively to deliver views of clinical
information through secure, single
sign-on, web-browser technology.
The virtual EHR is dependent on a
decentralized, federated data model.
Using this architecture allows HCOs to
leverage legacy HIS/CIS investments,
avoiding the maintenance of an
expensive Central Data Repository (CDR).
9
Technology that overcomes:
Eliminating adoption issues
6.17th Annual HIMSS Leadership Survey sponsored by ACS Healthcare Solutions.7. A CAPTCHA (anacronym for"completelyautomated publicTuring test to tell computers andhumansapart", trademarkedby CarnegieMellon University) is a typeof challenge-responsetest used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha
With billions being invested in the migration from paper to
electronic records, rapid ROI is a determining factor on the
minds of executives and administrators concerned about their
bottom line. Speedy, enterprise-wide adoption is critical for any
eHealth initiative to realize the full benefits of their investment.
B R E A K T H R O U G H S O L U T I O N S I N C A N A D I A N H E A L T H C A R E
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The federated data model eliminates
system integration hassles and
overcomes patient identification
challenges with master patient indexing
logarithms. It seamlessly integrates
disparate clinical and census data,
transforming fragmented data into a
clean and concise dashboard of clinical
information. For example, a virtual EHR
presents admitting, attending, and
referring physicians with ready access
to all of their patients clinical information
and, when combined with systems such
as computerized physician order entry
(CPOE), provides the ability to input
patient order entry and review via
a web browser. Additionally, online
continuing medical education (CME),
calendars, scheduling, clinical trial
information, grand rounds, physician
newsletters, and relevant clinical
content may all be presented in a
customizable view for each user.
Physician Acceptance
The biggest concern for busy physicians
is the time and energy required to
transfer data and learn a new system.
They are understandably reluctant to
spend time away from patient-facing
activities to address administrative
business. To reduce training time,
leading eHealth solution providers
devote considerable resources to
researching and designing intuitive
applications that build on existing user
experiences best practices.
Additionally, the federated data model
eliminates the need for physicians
to learn underlying applications for
checking labs or reviewing films, as the
view they see does not require them to
interact with the software, only to view it.
Patient Identification, Privacy
And HIPAA Compliance
Understandably, HCOs and physicians
are sensitive to their responsibility to
protect confidential patient information
and may see rapid, real-time online
access to vital information as a threat
to privacy. Adequate security measures
and an architectural design must be
engineered to allow an organization
to implement eHealth applications
with demonstrable compliance with
regulations and respect for the patients
rights. Authentication protocols and
CAPTCHA , encryption of secure
messages, automatic audit trails of
information access, controlled work-
flow and secure servers guard patient
information from unauthorized access.
108. 17th AnnualHIMSS Leadership Surveysponsored by ACS Healthcare Solutions.
PATIEN
TS
PHYS
ICIANS EMPLOYEES
CONSUM
ERS
COO
CEO CFO
CIO
ENHANCED
RECRUITING
AND RETENTION
ENHANCED
TECHNOLOGY
EXPERIENCE
ENHANCED USER
EXPERIENCE
HEIGHTENED
CLINICAL EXPERIENCE
MORE EFFICIENT
OPERATIONS
ENHANCED IT
COST CONTROL
ENHANCED PATIENT/
PHYSICIAN EXPERIENCE
MORE REFERRALS
AND ADMITS
H e a l t h C a r e
Add Value Across The Enterprise
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Hamiltons Vision
Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) had a
vision for an Enterprise-wide healthcare
Portal that would consolidate multiple
information sources and vendor systems
using intuitive, horizontal web-browser
technology. HHSs strategy was to eliminate
persistent frustrations such as repeated
identity validation between disparate
systems, excessively complicated application
navigation and the difficulty of bringing
patient data into meaningful clinical views.
HHSs strategic objectives were to improve
communicationswith stakeholders, enhance
patient care and safety, and build a vehicle
which canextendto a patient to collaborate
with their treatment plan.
Landscape
Hamilton Health Sciences currently
maintains a predominantly MEDITECH
information systems environment.
Although the MEDITECH systems are used
for patient census and clinical data,
information is stored across a variety
of platforms, and within isolated
departmental programs such as PACS and
document imaging systems. Physicians
needed quick andeasy accessto patient data
residing in both MEDITECH and non-
MEDITECH locations. Therein lay the
challenge. Tearing down and replacing those
systems with a single-vendor alternative
is cost prohibitive and extremely risky.
Enter Clinical Dashboard
The Clinical Dashboard (powered by
MEDSEEK) is based on a Virtual EMRbusiness model and enables any
healthcare delivery organization, large or
small, to rapidly connect disparate,
underlying systems, as well as deliver to
users fresh and intuitive, consolidated
views of clinical information from systems
already familiar to much of the population.
The Clinical Dashboard was the perfect
solution for the challenges confronting
Hamilton Health Sciences. The Clinical
Dashboard solution enables the
consolidation of all information and
applications across the enterprise as
elements of a single, patient-centric
environment. This extends authorized
users at HHS to gain instant access to
disparate patient data throughout the
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Case Study:
HamiltonHealth Sciences
B R E A K T H R O U G H S O L U T I O N S I N C A N A D I A N H E A L T H C A R E
Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) is a family of five hospitals and
a cancer centre, serving the more than 2.2 million residents of
Hamilton, Central South and Central West Ontario regions.
Cost And Training Issues
In the 2006 HIMSS CIO Survey,
lack of staffing resources was
identified as the second most
common barrier to IT adoption.
Time and resource eff iciencies
enabled by eHealth have been
demonstrated to pay for them-
selves in as little as a year.
Fewer chart pulls and phone calls,
speedier access to accurate infor-
mation, lower record maintenance,
and staffing costs, and revenue
enhancements together create a
synergy of efficiencymore than
compensating for the up-front
investments. For example,
reducing the need for just one
ministrator/trainer can save
significant financial resources.
One estimate based on a 40 hour
work week over 50 weeks, and an
average annual salary of $50,000,
suggests that reducing one full
time trainer can yield a savings
of $61,000 USD a year. The
architecture and design of eHealth
products are focused on allowing
non-technical users the maximum
flexibility to manage their websites
and portals. Additionally, intuitivedesign reduces the need for train-
ing and results in an immediate
cost saving.
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healthcare continuum. The Clinical
Dashboard system offers HHS clinicians
single sign-on, as well as an intuitive single
patient search utility from any computer
with Internet access. It also has the ability
to provide wireless / mobile/ handheld
access and support for multiple technologies.
The Clinical Dashboard visually aggregates
disparate data through a common and
intuitive human interaction model, thus
transforming fragmented data stored in
isolated information silosinto integrated and
meaningful clinical information.
In the past, physicians and clinicians were
forced to accept the vendors view of data.
With the Clinical Dashboard, physicians
can see patient data in any format they
desirea one-stop shop for all their
information needs. This will greatly
enhance the hospitals communication with
their extended family of community
physicians, many of whom use MacIntosh
based MacMedical practice systems.
The Clinical Dashboard solution
provides the robust infrastructure
needed for more advanced enterprise
portal development whether clinical or
administrative, both internally and with
other community hospital partners and
services. Already, there is a groundswell
of interest in how others can leverage
their existing assets and participate in
the eHealth revolution of healthcare.
The focus now is on the transformative
improvements the Clinical Dashboard
solution is making. Consolidation of all
information and applications across the
enterprise as elements of a single,
patient-centric environment
Improvements
The Clinical Dashboard solves specific
challenges for HHS. In this particular
instance, with HHS's MEDITECH
environment, there is the common
problem of multiple applications
requiring identity validation. With the
help of eConnect, HHS users are able to
bring different documents or data
together to provide for a seamlessly
integrated, automated data synthesis.
This significantly reduces the need to
navigate the application and remember
the data from multiple views in order to
provide for that specific account view.
A quantum leap!
A new paradigm!
These words describe the level of change
afforded by the Clinical Dashboards web
based enterprise portal technologies, says
Dale Anderson, IT Manager with Hamilton
Health Sciences. The ability to consolidate
multiple information sources and vendor
systems together using intuitive web
browser technology will assist not only
Hamilton Health Sciences, butsignificantly improve communications
with community providers, physicians and
ultimately patients will be better served.
Tailor made for Canada's healthcare
regionalization initiatives, the Clinical
Dashboard also assists with these
challenges. In the past, HHS saw instances
where products or applications became
available that predated the new offerings
made available by the incumbent vendors.
For instance, MEDITECH did not have a
scanning product available prior to the
hospital purchasing Sovera. With the
Clinical Dashboard, users are able to
access patient data residing in MEDITECH
with data from non-MEDITECH
applications like Sovera and have it all
presented in the same unified patient view.
Return on Investment
The Clinical Dashboards systems user
training is less than 10 minutes, rather
than the 3-4 hours of training for typical
HIS systems. Additionally, a typical
installation engagement is around 90 days
and some customers see as much as an
80% to 90% reduction in chart pulls. The
productivity gains are substantial.
Ultimately, the Dashboard solution allows
Hamilton Health Sciences to preserve,
leverage, and significantly enhance their
existing IT investments, which helps
minimize development time and the
installation cost of implementing
this solution. Providing high-quality
healthcare at a lower cost, yields
significant savings that can be reinvested
in other parts of the health care system.
Core HIS
HIS, MEDITECH MAGIC,
C/S for Radiology
PACS
GE Centricity
Document Imaging
AMS Sovera
Hamilton Clinical
Dashboard Installations
+ Hamilton General Hospital
+ Henderson General Hospital
+ Chedoke Hospital
+ McMaster University Medical
Center (MUMC)
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eHealth is no longer in its infancy, yet sustained concerns about implementing new technology is
understandable. Its a real challenge for most organizations to create a tactical plan to ensure that
their web capabilities support current corporate objectives. It is far more difficult for HCOs to devise
a long term plan that serves the evolving needs of the organization, adapts to technological advances,
and meets new societal demands. The pressure to deliver on high-priced projects adds gravity to the
matter. The initial expenses are just a small piece of the overall financial commitment an HCO makes
in the transition to eHealth, and the failure rate for EHR implementations is estimated at 30 to 50
percent. False starts and implementation timeline overruns are too costly for most HCOs to risk.
13 9. MEDSEEK, 2006. Based on internal study data.
New technology:
Follow the leaders
B R E A K T H R O U G H S O L U T I O N S I N C A N A D I A N H E A L T H C A R E
To overcome these barriers, part of
doing it right the first time requires
research to learn from organizations
that have been successful in their own
eHealth initiatives. Over the past
decade, a wide variety of HCOs have
achieved eHealth success, from early-
adopting visionaries constantly striving
for better ways to engage their stake-
holders, to more cautious pragmatists
waiting for proven solutions to their
online needs.
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To remain competitive hospitals will
soon have no real choice but to further
transform their delivery platform.
Organizations unable or unwilling to
keep up are in danger of losing their
competitive edge. The trick is to
survive the transformation without
multi-restarts, multi-level failures and
multi-millions wasted.
The potential to succeed however, has
never been clearer. A proven model
is available that delivers rapid,
convenient access to any and all
lifetime patient medical information
from anywhere, regardless of when
and where the care was delivered.
Such a system is easily deployed,
satisfies the need for cost effectiveness
(ROI), dramatically increases
productivity (efficiency,) and best
use of resources. Ultimately, such
a platform creates a healthcare
environment that provides both
patients and providers with improved
outcomes and higher satisfaction.
Portals will allow transactions (and
information) to flow rapidly and
seamlessly over the web, but first the
groundwork must be laid. Thankfully,
proven technology exists (as demon-
strated by Agfa HealthCares IMPAX
Clinical Dashboard) to help healthcare
organizations transition smoothly from
one level of eHealth to the next.
Ultimately, confidence in proven
solutions will embolden the willingness
of responsible managers to move
forward with and capitalize upon
the promise of eHealth.
For more information, contact your Agfa HealthCare Sales representative.To view Canadian case studies or access additional product information, visit
www.agfahealthcare.ca/clinical-dashboard or email [email protected].
The possibility exists to be at the forefront of the eHealth revolution.
Let Agfa HealthCare show you how.
Need Help With Your eHealth Roadmap? Were Here To Help.
With 1 out of every 2 hospitals globally using agfa technology, Agfa HealthCare is a global leader in healthcare
informatics. The company has a unique, holistic approach, enabling it to provide in-depth clinical know-how and fully
integrated, hospital-wide, solutions, offering partners a seamless flow of information and a 360 view of patient care.
Designed to match the unique needs of discerning healthcare professionals, Agfa HealthCare's enterprise-wide it plat-
form integrates and optimizes all administrative and clinical data at the point of care.
For more information on Agfa HealthCare, please visit www.agfa.ca.
Authored by Andrew Giles, Marketing Manager, Agfa HealthCare. Parts of the copy are reprinted with MedSeeks permission.
14
Competitive hospitals:
Transforming delivery platforms
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Agfa HealthCare Corporation HealthCare Headquarters 10 South Academy Street, Greenville, SC 29601
Canada Agfa HealthCare Inc. 77 Belfield Road, Etobicoke, Ont., M9W 1G6
Mexico Agfa de Mxico, S.A. de C.V. Benjamin Franklin # 98, Colonia Escandon, C.P. 11800, Mxico, D.F.
Agfa and the Agfa rhombus are trademarks of Agfa-Gevaert N.V., Belgium, or its affiliates. IMPAX and Clinical Dashboard are
trademarks of Agfa HealthCare NV, Belgium or its affiliates. All other trademarks are held by their respective owners and are
used in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement. The data in this publication are for illustration purposes
only and do not necessarily represent standards or specifications, which must be met by Agfa HealthCare. All information
contained herein is intended for guidance purposes only, and characteristics of the products and services described in this
publication can be changed at any time without notice. Products and services may not be available for your local area.
Please contact your local sales representative for availability information. Agfa HealthCare diligently strives to provide
as accurate information as possible, but shall not be responsible for any typographical error.
Copyright 2007 Agfa HealthCare NV
All rights reserved
Published by Agfa HealthCare NV
B-2640 Mortsel - Belgium
Why Agfa HealthCare?
Agfa HealthCare is a global leader in the fast growing market of integrated IT and imaging systems, offering
healthcare facilities a seamless flow of information and a 360 view of patient care. The company has a unique,
holistic approach, enabling it to provide in-depth clinical know-how and fully integrated hospital-wide solutions.
These specialized solutions integrate IT and imaging systems for Radiology, Cardiology, Mammography and
Orthopaedics. Agfa HealthCares enterprise-wide IT platform integrates all administrative and clinical data within a
healthcare facility and is designed to match the workflow of specific types of healthcare professionals.
www.agfa.com/healthcare