Eastern Ontario health network introduces bilingual Patient Portal

Serving the Greater Ottawa area, the six healthcare organizations that make up the Champlain Association of MEDITECH Partners (CHAMP) knew that connecting with patients in their native language was essential to achieving positive outcomes.

As several of the organizations, including Bruyère, Hôpital Glengarry Memorial Hospital, and Hôpital Montfort, have a large percentage of patients who identify as Francophone, it was imperative that their patient portal could serve both the French-speaking and English-speaking communities.

In order to meet the needs of their entire patient population, the partnership initiated a project to develop a French language version of their MEDITECH portal.

“Even though the content of the Electronic Health Record is sometimes in English – for continuity of care with our community partners – offering our patients a French interface was non-negotiable,” said Hôpital Montfort CEO Dr. Bernard Leduc. “By collaborating with MEDITECH, we were able to make this option available.”

Led by MEDITECH’s Patient Engagement team, the French portal project was initiated in June of 2020 and through its agile development method took less than six months to complete. The EHR provider drew from its experience developing a Spanish portal, which is currently in use.

MEDITECH’s development process entailed creating a tool to import French translations into the EHR, as well as working with its French speaking staff members to review the translations, and manually translating some of the portal content.

“When our portal went live in January 2021, it was available in both French and English, which is essential as part of our mandate to serve our entire community,” said Dr. Leduc. “It’s a convenient tool to help them monitor their conditions, while also strengthening their connections with providers and with our healthcare organization.”

As the CHAMP members are on a shared system, any of their Patient Portal users may select French or English as their primary language. They can use it to view results and provider notes, and to register and check in for appointments through the portal.

“This was an exciting project for us to develop with Hôpital Montfort and CHAMP,” said MEDITECH Vice President Leah Farina. “Healthcare organizations are continually looking for ways to engage with patients and the Portal is often the first opportunity to connect. We are pleased to be able to support CHAMP’s efforts to reach their French speaking population.”

CHAMP is a cluster of hospitals that partnered to deliver enhanced patient care with Expanse, MEDITECH’s web-based EHR. In addition to the organizations listed above, CHAMP also includes Arnprior Regional Health, Carleton Place & District Memorial Hospital, and Queensway Carleton Hospital.

As MEDITECH is Canada’s most widely used EHR, development of a Francophone patient portal was seen by the company as part of its ongoing commitment to support the unique needs of Canadian healthcare. Learn more about how MEDITECH is connecting communities across Canada by visiting https://ehr.meditech.com/global/meditech-canada.