Portal Communications & The Promise Of e-Health

8/3/2019 Portal Communications & The Promise Of e-Health

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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the outdated information systems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


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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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.


5

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


8/16

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.


7

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.



11/16

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

11

Case Study:

HamiltonHealth Sciences


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.


13/16

12

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)


14/16

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


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.


15/16

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


16/16

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

Portal Communications & The Promise Of e-Health

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