Physician IT

Rural doctors in Newfoundland select Nightingale for EMR

GRAND FALLS-WINDSOR, Nfld., and MARKHAM, Ont. – Nightingale Informatix Corp., a provider of electronic medical record (EMR) software and related services, announced that it will implement its web-based Nightingale On Demand EMR solution with Killick Health Services Inc., a Newfoundland-based, private multidisciplinary healthcare clinic.

The implementation is a key component of the clinic’s “Killick Initiative”, which seeks to take a leadership role in improving patient care across the province by linking specialists, physicians and healthcare facilities through a collaborative model of care.

Killick chose Nightingale for its industry leadership in EMR, accessibility and the broad functional capabilities of its Nightingale On Demand web-based solution. The secure infrastructure the company employs to ensure patient records are safely managed and maintained was another important factor.

“Nightingale’s web-based EMR provides the ideal solution for tying our remote communities together through a single patient record to improve patient care across the region,” says Kris Luscombe, Director, Killick Health Services. “We believe an EMR will be a powerful enabler in promoting and realizing the goals of our Initiative by assisting the healthcare community in delivering care more efficiently throughout the province.”

With over 5.3 million patient records under management, Nightingale continues to gain recognition and acceptance by provincial ministries of health, large-scale hospitals, leading healthcare institutions and certification bodies, making it among one of the most widely used EMR solutions in Canada.

“Killick represents another example of physicians recognizing that the power of an EMR solution extends beyond the management of patient records, but as a catalyst to improving overall patient care throughout a community,” says Sam Chebib (pictured), President and CEO of Nightingale. “Nightingale is proud to be a partner with this visionary group of physicians as they proactively seek to change the way healthcare is managed in their province.”

The Killick Initiative, the brainchild of eight physicians at the Killick clinic, seeks to improve care delivery and service access by aligning community needs with available services and attempting to use all health providers to their full scope of practice. This shift focuses healthcare management from a reactive model addressing acute medical issues to a proactive patient-centred approach focusing on health promotion, illness prevention and enhanced chronic disease management.

The clinic is a part of the Central Health Authority and resides in Grand Falls-Windsor, a large rural region with over 100,000 people spread over half the land mass of the island of Newfoundland. Unlike typical rural centres, where healthcare providers reside in a single institution, such as a rural hospital, care providers in Grand Falls-Windsor are widely distributed throughout the community and region.

“Without a shared ambulatory facility in our region, the opportunity for healthcare providers to collaborate is significantly reduced,” says Luscombe. “Electronic documents and an EMR strategy are seen as a critical component to realizing the goals of the Initiative. It can build a patient-centred community of healthcare providers by connecting them to a single, online patient record that can be shared, managed and accurately updated.”

Nightingale On Demand allows medical offices to capture and share clinical documentation, share lab results, schedule appointments, monitor patient care, measure care delivery efficiency, detail electronic referrals and prescriptions, perform billing tasks and reporting, and to sort and search through patient data more effectively and efficiently.

About Killick
Killick Health Services is a physician driven enterprise which employs a collaborative care model and the latest technology to deliver evidence based, patient centered care. The organization consists of a core network of specialists in family medicine, psychiatry and internal medicine dedicated to standardizing documentation and communications to streamline interdisciplinary care. The efficiency of communications assists in prioritizing patient needs to increase access to required services. Additionally, expert knowledge is easily shared among providers to improve coordination of care. With dedication to shared care, continuing medical education, and training of medical students and residents, individual skills and professional development are enhanced to further improve health care. Killick Health Services has a broad vision to achieve excellence in health care and health education and has developed many strategic partnerships with regional health services and Memorial University of Newfoundland. The organization represents a newly established learning community with videoconference and distance education capabilities. Educational partnerships have been fostered under the leadership of Dr. John Campbell.

About Nightingale
Nightingale is one of the fastest growing health care service and software companies in North America with over 5.3 million patient records under management in a hosted (ASP) environment. It is recognized as an industry leader in Web-based clinician and community based electronic medical records (EMR) serving the needs of small primary care practices, multi-physician outpatient clinics, and large scale regional health organizations and networks. Coupled with integrated practice management, transcription and revenue cycle management, Nightingale’s comprehensive service offering allows customers to enhance patient care, increase revenue opportunities and optimize operations. Nightingale is continuously innovating and enhancing its services to meet the needs of its growing and diverse customer base. www.nightingalemd.ca.