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Chronic disease IT
Lawson, MedManager test chronic
disease portal
LONDON, Ont. – Lawson Health
Research Institute (Lawson), and MedManager of Kitchener, Ont., have
announced a research partnership to implement and evaluate patient
portals for three chronic disease clinics – cardiac rehabilitation,
diabetes, and prostate cancer.
MedManager’s ‘Live Well.Connected’ portals will provide access to
education, management tools, and interactive support for the patients of
London Health Sciences Centre’s (LHSC) cardiac rehabilitation and
prostate cancer programs, and St. Joseph’s Health Care, London’s
diabetes clinic.
Patient portals will be an important component of the hospitals’ future
Information Technology and services plan, and the project will provide
helpful input to the strategy.
The evaluation of the portals is being led by Dr. Femida Gwadry-Sridhar,
Director of I-THINK Research at Lawson. “Engaging patients in their own
care is the future of healthcare and we need to determine what the best
ways are to involve them – patient portals offer great potential,” says
Dr. Gwadry-Sridhar.
LHSC’s Cardiac Rehabilitation & Secondary Prevention Program (CRSP) will
leverage its portal to support patients following their completion of
the current six-month in-clinic program. Dr. Neville Suskin, Medical
Director of the CRSP, believes “the portal will help to address the
post-discharge service gap of traditional cardiac rehabilitation
programs by providing patients with ongoing access to education and
self-monitoring tools, as well as peer support.”
At St. Joseph’s, the portal program will empower patients with
self-management resources and tools, and allow endocrinologist Dr.
Merrill Edmonds to review patient health summaries prior to and during
appointments. “The My Diabetes Wellness Portal could greatly enhance
patients’ ability to self-manage their condition, and enable our care
team to access patients’ remotely-entered data such as blood glucose
levels and to receive alerts about potential problems,” said Dr.
Edmonds.
Dr. Glenn Bauman of LHSC’s London Regional Cancer Program feels the
portal will be potentially beneficial in providing patients with a new
way to access information and support. “ProPortal is a unique resource
for our patients to learn more about prostate cancer, to track their
treatment progress, and to find online assistance from other patients
and members of our care team,” noted Dr. Bauman.
MedManager President & CEO, Michael Cowan, believes that “patients will
benefit from having access to laboratory test results from their clinic
electronic health record, and the automated, proactive health management
reminders that are triggered by that data.”
The portal project is being supported through funding from htx.ca -The
Health Technology Exchange (HTX)’s Technology Assessment and
Implementation Program, with the support of London Health Sciences
Centre, St. Joseph’s, and MedManager. HTX program funding is made
available through the support of the Ontario Ministry of Research and
Innovation (MRI).
About Lawson Health Research Institute
As the research institute of London Health Sciences Centre and St.
Joseph’s Health Care, London, and working in partnership with The
University of Western Ontario, Lawson Health Research Institute is
committed to furthering scientific knowledge to advance health care
around the world. For more information, visit
www.lawsonresearch.com.
About MedManager Interactive Corporation
MedManager is Canada’s leading provider of Internet-based chronic
disease management solutions and services. MedManager Live Well.
Connected. portals provide individuals and healthcare professionals with
online access to the educational, planning, monitoring, and
communication tools needed to proactively and interactively manage
chronic disease. MedManager’s health and chronic disease management
portal is licensed as a Class II Medical Device by Health Canada and its
quality system is certified to the ISO 13485 standard for medical
devices. For more information please visit
www.medmanager.ca.
Posted Dec. 24, 2009
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