TORONTO – OntarioMD has announced the addition of 21 hospitals (including the Manitoulin Health Centre) that are part of North Eastern Ontario Network (NEON) to its provincial Health Report Manager (HRM) digital report delivery solution. The addition of NEON hospitals successfully completes the transition of these hospitals from the Physician Office Integration (POI) report delivery project in the North East Local Health Integration Network to HRM. Clinicians in Northeastern Ontario will now receive reports from more than 250 hospitals and independent health facility (IHF) sites connected to HRM from across Ontario directly into their OntarioMD-certified electronic medical records.
“Clinicians in Northeastern Ontario will be able to follow-up with their patients sooner after they are discharged from any NEON hospitals and from hospitals outside their region to continue care, prevent complications and unnecessary hospital readmissions,” said Sarah Hutchinson, CEO of OntarioMD, in a release.
Paula Fields, vice president of Clinical Services and Chief Nursing Officer of MHC, told the Recorder the Health Report Manager is being implemented by eHealth Ontario in conjunction with OntarioMD as the long-term provincial solution to provide reports from hospitals, Independent Health Facilities (IHFs) and private health clinics into clinicians’ electronic medical records (EMRs).
The HRM will eventually replace the current solution that has been in place across the Northeast LHIN, POI, said Ms. Fields. Locally, reports from the hospital including diagnostic imaging, laboratory and physician summaries have been electronically flowing into the Family Health Team and Medical Office electronic health record. The HRM solution will replace this current system.
The HRM is being deployed by OntarioMD as the long-term provincial solution to provide medical record and diagnostic imaging reports from a growing number of hospitals and specialty clinics across Ontario to clinicians’ certified medical records (EMRs).
“The provincial solution will not only enable local medical reports and diagnostic information to be received by our local physician offices, local clinicians will now receive reports when patients receive care from outside the Northeast LHIN,” said Ms. Fields. “Furthermore, considering the large tourist population that visits the Island, HRM will allow information (diagnostics, physician summaries etc.) regarding non-residents care at MHC to be automatically transferred to their primary care provider outside of the NELHIN. This improves patient safety, care transitions and patient follow-up for both resident and non-resident patients.”
The addition of NEON hospitals as HRM sending facilities will add to the more than 1.7 million reports HRM sends every month to the EMRs of 10,000 clinicians throughout Ontario. HRM has been a valuable digital health asset for the province, avoiding $36 million in costs to the health care system in 2018, and saving about 23 to 33 minutes of practice time per clinician every day.
