Interoperability

Emergency departments are overflowing. Hospital beds are full. Wait lists continue to grow. Across Canada, health systems are responding by investing in hospital@Home programs, community paramedicine, integrated palliative care, and other models that shift care out of hospitals and into the community. Read More

Project AMPLIFI, led by St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (St. Joe’s), has helped overcome vendor fragmentation barriers to Ontario’s vision of a single, cross-sector digital patient chart by connecting 106 hospital systems with 586 long-term care (LTC) facilities. Read More

“As a family doctor, I often hold the most complete picture of my patients’ health because the majority of patient care happens in the community and much of that information lives in my EMR. Yet I don’t always see what happens when my patients receive care in hospitals, specialist offices, or walk in clinics. Too often I’m logging into multiple systems and piecing together information myself, always wondering if something is missing. To provide safe, coordinated care, I need a clear, up-to-date picture of my patient’s health regardless of where they received care. National standards like the Canadian Core Data for Interoperability are essential so information can follow the patient and allow me to focus on the patient in front of me.” – Dr. Chandi Chandrasena, chief medical officer, Ontario MD Read More

Across Canada, patient flow is commonly framed as an operational challenge: bed capacity, emergency department overcrowding, alternate level of care patients occupying acute beds and system-wide pressure. These measures matter, but they are symptoms, not causes, and they only tell part of the story. Read More

To help break down the silos of patient data and connect clinicians to the information they need, MEDITECH last year launched Traverse Exchange Canada in Ontario. The network now ties together 43 hospitals using MEDITECH, allowing them to more easily transfer data. Read More

Interoperability in healthcare is essential to delivering high-quality, patient-centered care, especially as healthcare systems become increasingly complex. To explore this critical topic, Stratford Group recently hosted a roundtable discussion with six industry experts: Read More