Introducing 'Connections'
For nearly two decades, the HITS eHealth Office, based at Hamilton Health Sciences, has played a key role in innovating and transforming digital health for healthcare providers and patients across South West Ontario. We want to keep you informed of how this work can benefit you, your patients, your family – to improve care delivery and empower health journeys.
‘Connections’ is the name of our new newsletter that we intend to publish on a quarterly basis. Please feel free to forward this edition to your colleagues and friends who want to stay up to date with local and regional digital health initiatives.
In each edition, we’ll provide updates on various digital health tools and initiatives, including ClinicalConnect, eConsult, and one of the newest patient portals called ConnectMyHealth. We are pleased to share this first edition of Connections with you because you've received our communications in the past, subscribed directly to it, or we have an existing business relationship and you've indicated an interest in our work. As part of this evolution, for those who previously received our ClinicalConnect eUpdate, we are replacing it with Connections which will continue to include important updates about the provider-facing portal.
Thank you for reading, and if you have any questions about our work, you’re welcome to email us at info@HITSeHealth.ca, or call us at 905-577-8270. More information about how the HITS eHealth Office can support organizations’ use of digital health tools is available on our website at https://HITSeHealth.ca.
|
|
Helping Healthcare Providers Deliver Care More Efficiently |
|
ClinicalConnect is a secure, web-based portal that provides physicians and clinicians with real-time access to their patients’ electronic medical information from all acute care hospitals, provincially-run Home & Community Care Support Services and Regional Cancer Programs in South West Ontario, known as Ontario Health West Region, plus four provincial data repositories. ClinicalConnect is a fundamental tool in bridging the gap to aggregate patients’ health records from otherwise disparate information systems spanning a wide geographical area and multiple regional healthcare facilities into one, consolidated electronic health record.
Latest news:
• Paediatric Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine information is available to ClinicalConnect users at Participant Organizations that are authorized to view data from the provincial Digital Health Drug Repository (DHDR). This adds to the COVID-19 vaccine information that’s been available in ClinicalConnect for older age groups since May 2021. COVID-19 vaccination information displays in the Pharmacy module. Learn more.
• Work to launch ClinicalConnect from additional Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems used in Primary Care offices is underway. The benefit to physicians, their staff and patients is that health records from hospitals and other outside sources can be viewed by authorized ClinicalConnect users within the physician's office, as opposed to having to ask patients for details of their procedure, or wait for records to be sent from the hospital.
|
|
Helping Patients Empower
Their Health Journey
|
|
Did you know a patient-facing version of ClinicalConnect, called ConnectMyHealth, will soon be available? To support Ontario’s plans to introduce new means for more Ontarians to access their personal health information, the HITS eHealth Office, in collaboration with participating Ontario Health Teams in Ontario Health’s West Region, has received approval and funding to productionize and deploy a regional patient portal called ConnectMyHealth.
ConnectMyHealth will provide patients in this region with an online, single access channel to view their health records from various healthcare facilities in Ontario, and will be integrated with Ontario's trusted account digital identity service. More information will be made available about the portal soon, including how to register for an account.
Here’s a sneak peek at what the portal will look like:
|
|
Improving Access to
Specialist Advice
|
|
With over 1,700 specialists across Ontario and 290 in Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant, eConsult, part of the broader provincial eServices Program, allows primary care providers to seek specialist advice through a secure, web-based platform and receive a response within days.
For healthcare providers interested in gaining access to or needing support with OTN’s eConsult, email eConsult@HITSeHealth.ca.
Latest news:
• In response to the current COVID-19 pandemic, primary care providers now have access to COVID-specific specialist advice through 9 COVID-19 specialty groups.
• For Telus PS Suite EMR users, an eConsult Custom Form designed to help integrate sending and receiving eConsults into your clinic’s workflow, is available by emailing us at eConsult@HITSeHealth.ca.
• Recruitment is underway for specialists interested in supporting the eReferral to eConsult Initiative (Ontario eServices Program), whereby specialists respond to eReferrals as an eConsult. For more information please contact eReferral@ehealthce.ca.
|
|
Tips & Tricks: It's As Easy as 1-2-3! |
|
For this first edition of Connections, we chose to feature the ClinicalConnect Resource Centre which includes a wide variety of PDF and video-based training resources. In the Resource Centre, you'll find handy training tools that are categorized by clinical module, or by key feature/functionality.
|
|
In each edition of Connections, we'll introduce you to a member of our team - all part of the broader group of digital health experts who are pleased to help support your knowledge and awareness of digital health solutions.
Name: Dale Anderson
Role: Director, HITS eHealth Office
Dale has more than 30 years of diverse information technology experience and has held a number of senior management positions in the acute and chronic care, cancer care, eHealth, outsourced management services, insurance and government sectors. For the last decade, he’s been integral in developing various digital health solutions that are widely used across south west Ontario, most notably ClinicalConnect. Dale led the development of this provider-facing portal that today is one of North America’s largest health information exchanges, and is a provincial clinical viewer in Ontario.
Most recently, Dale has focused on digital health initiatives in the patient space and as a result, the patient-facing version of ClinicalConnect, known as ConnectMyHealth, is now being readied to be made available so patients can view their health data from multiple healthcare facilities, in one portal. As a proven and recognized digital health champion, Dale has been a regular presenter and participant at various eHealth conferences over the years.
Outside of work, Dale is a member of the Board of Directors and coach for a regional division of Special Olympics’ Alpine Skiing and is a former director of the Therapeutic Equestrian Association for the Disabled (TEAD).
|
|
The views expressed are those of the HITS eHealth Office at Hamilton Health Sciences and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Government of Ontario or any of its personnel or entities, including Ontario Health. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
