Published on 17-Aug-2011
Validated on 12 Mar 2013
Customer:
Canadian Provincial Health Systems
Industry:
Government, Healthcare
Deployment country:
Canada
Solution:
Industry Framework , Information Governance, Master Data Management, Smarter Planet
Smarter Planet:
Smarter Government, Smarter Healthcare
Overview
Canada was one of the first countries to lead the way in electronic health record (EHR) adoption. In 2001, Canadian government leaders envisioned a countrywide unified patient record that would result in better quality of healthcare for everyone. The government’s goal was to ultimately create a pan-Canadian EHR system that would enable the sharing of patient health information across jurisdictions. This was no small task, as few Canadian industries compare in size and complexity to Canada’s public healthcare sector, serving a population of 33M and over 100 health regions and 900 hospitals.
Business need:
The Canadian national government envisioned a unified, countrywide EHR system that would integrate data in hundreds of legacy systems and provide clinicians with trustworthy, accurate and complete information on every patient, while eliminating duplicate records and the unnecessary costs associated with them. The first step would be to achieve this goal at the provincial level through the use of patient and provider registries, which would also be an important component of the future pan-Canadian infrastructure.
Solution:
The use of EHRs is important for providing coordinated healthcare. But creating a usable large-scale EHR system by providing access to data in disparate legacy systems can be a complex process. To minimize the effort—and optimize the results—many Canadian provinces are deploying a powerful new patient identity solution, through the use of algorithms optimized for comparison, standardization and weighting of patient data, to accurately match and link patient identities to create a single view for electronic medical records, clinical portals, administrative applications and analytics.
Benefits:
· Reduces incidence of duplicate patient records; in similar clinical settings, the solution has limited the propagation of duplicate information to fewer than one percent of records
· Reduced patient wait times for five critical services through improved wait-list management
· Improved care by enabling clinicians to make more timely and informed decisions about diagnosis and treatment
Case Study
Canada was one of the first countries to lead the way in electronic health record (EHR) adoption. In 2001, Canadian government leaders envisioned a countrywide unified patient record that would result in better quality of healthcare for everyone. The government’s goal was to ultimately create a pan-Canadian EHR system that would enable the sharing of patient health information across jurisdictions. This was no small task, because few Canadian industries compare in size and complexity to Canada’s public healthcare sector, which serves a population of 33 million through more than 100 health regions and 900 hospitals.
The Opportunity
The Canadian national government envisioned a unified, countrywide EHR system that would integrate data in hundreds of legacy systems and provide clinicians with trustworthy, accurate and complete information on every patient, while eliminating duplicate records and the unnecessary costs associated with them. The first step would be to achieve this goal at the provincial level through the use of patient and provider registries, which would also be an important component of the future pan-Canadian infrastructure.
What Makes it Smarter
The use of EHRs is increasingly important for providing coordinated healthcare. But creating a usable large-scale EHR system by providing access to data in disparate legacy systems can be a complex and time-consuming process. To minimize the effort—and optimize the results—many Canadian provinces are deploying a powerful new patient identity solution, through the use of algorithms optimized for comparison, standardization and weighting of patient data, to accurately match and link patient identities to create a single view for electronic medical records, clinical portals, administrative applications and analytics. Clinicians throughout Canada now have ready access to the information they need to make better-informed decisions about diagnosis and treatment.
Real Business Results
· Reduces incidence of duplicate patient records; in similar clinical settings, the solution has limited the propagation of duplicate information to fewer than one percent of records
· Reduced patient wait times for five critical services through improved wait-list management
· Improved care by enabling clinicians to make more timely and informed decisions about diagnosis and treatment
For more information
Please contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner. Visit us at: ibm.com/healthcare
To learn more about Canadian Provincial Health Systems, visit: https://www.infoway-inforoute.ca/lang-en/
Products and services used
IBM products and services that were used in this case study.
Software:
IBM Initiate Inspector, IBM Initiate Patient, IBM Initiate Provider
Legal Information
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