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eHealth Update

lhinconnection | 21 September, 2009 09:33

By Steve Banyai
Erie St. Clair LHIN eHealth Lead and President & CEO of Consolidated Health Information Services

Over the past few months, eHealth Ontario has been under scrutiny. While we wait for the Auditor General’s report, which is expected this fall and should lay the ground work for what needs to be done internally at eHealth Ontario, we must remember that the agenda remains the same. In Erie St. Clair that means we are working to deliver eHealth Ontario’s agenda of an electronic health record for all Ontarians by 2015.

Steve Banyai is President and Chief Executive Officer of Consolidated Health Information Services, a Shared Services Organization owned by Windsor Regional Hospital, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance and Bluewater Health.  Prior to joining CHIS in January 2009, Steve was the Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Bridgepoint Health for seven years.  Bridgepoint Health is a 400 bed complex care and rehab hospital in Toronto.  Steve has also worked as a Senior Consultant for Healthtech and was President and CEO of SMB Technologies, his own company which provided IT Strategic Planning and consulting services for hospitals in the Greater Toronto Area.  

Steve is a native of Essex County, growing up in Kingsville and attending the University of Windsor before departing to the United Kingdom to further his education and career.

In March, Ontario’s eHealth Strategy was released. It lays out three clinical priorities (Diabetes Management, Medication Management, and Wait Times) and four foundational priorities (Cornerstone Information Systems, Clinical Activity Information Systems, Technology Services, and, Enabling Practices and Talent Management). The strategy is really a road map of what needs to be done over the next three years across Ontario.

In Erie St. Clair, the LHIN has embraced the potential for Consolidated Health Information Services (CHIS) to deliver on its own priorities in addition to being the technology service delivery vehicle for the LHIN/eHealth. As the eHealth Lead in this region and the President & Chief Executive Officer of CHIS, my role is to ensure that Erie St. Clair is properly prepared to implement a wide range of solutions supported by eHealth Ontario. The good news is that our LHIN, due to the existence of CHIS, is well positioned to do so. In fact, we’ve already started that work.

Last winter, CHIS led a pilot initiative to help physician offices and a Family Health Team link their electronic medical records (EMR) system to a number of hospitals. By doing so, physicians benefit from having comprehensive patient records available in their offices that include access to results of hospital-based services such as lab tests and diagnostic images. It also means that patient care is improved because family physicians are aware of hospital results more rapidly, which means they can also provide care more quickly. Although a limited number of physicians participated in the initial pilot, we are looking at ways to expand this service to other physicians across the region.

In spring of this year, a CHIS Project Management Office (PMO) was established (supported by the LHIN and eHealth Ontario), for the purpose of creating capacity in the area and to ensure the successful implementation of the provincial strategy. The PMO will lead eHealth projects in Erie St. Clair and provide support to health service provider-based projects. Consider the PMO as a shared resource that will help all of us to achieve our common eHealth goals.

This summer, Erie St. Clair was selected as the pilot LHIN to test the community-based Integrated Assessment Record.  This exciting project helps healthcare providers in community-based organizations (currently focused on mental health) and hospitals share patient information through a secure on-line viewer. By being able to ‘view’ information from multiple systems and organizations, providers in a patient’s circle of care benefit from a consolidated, more complete view of the patient. Since going live in early August, the number of providers involved in the pilot has expanded and LHINs across the province have indicated that they are eagerly waiting to learn about its success.

Most recently, as your eHealth Lead my energy has been focused on aligning our local priorities with the province and to seek additional support to pursue a number of initiatives that will drive eHealth activities in Erie St. Clair in the coming months. I hope to have more to share on this in the near future.

As we forge ahead on our eHealth activities, CHIS is growing and evolving to better serve our members and health service providers within the Erie St. Clair LHIN. At our recent Annual General Meeting, a number of key themes were identified that will drive our organization and further support the implementation of eHealth solutions in the region. They are:

  • Excellence in Service Quality
  • Access to the Right Information, Anytime, Anywhere
  • Leveraging Information to Apply Knowledge
  • Innovative Leadership and Strategic Alliances
  • Establishing a Sustainable, Accountable Enterprise

In the coming months, it is our intention to meet with health service providers and clinicians across the region to discuss the eHealth Ontario Strategy, our local priorities, and to better understand local needs and opportunities.

There is a lot of activity currently underway in support of eHealth. Although much of it is focused on complex technologies the end goals are quite simple – eHealth is about enabling people to work together; improving the secure flow of patient information; and, focusing on the patient, their information and the provision of integrated care. It’s really about improving patient care across Ontario and in Erie St. Clair.

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