TELUS and Queensway Carleton Hospital achieve significant milestone in rapid access to Emergency Treatment Records

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Mar 28, 2012, 10:00 ET

More than 120 family doctors receive Emergency Treatment Records and Admitted Patient Notifications within hours of a patient's emergency department visit using TELUS CareShare Results Distribution service

OTTAWA, March 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ - TELUS Health Solutions today announced an important milestone with Queensway Carleton Hospital (QCH) to accelerate the distribution of patient clinical documentation and Admitted Patient Notifications from emergency department visits to patients' family doctors using TELUS CareShare. More than 120 family doctors are receiving emergency treatment records within hours of a patient's emergency department visit. The six-month pilot project went live in December 2011 with more than 1350 documents being delivered to date. An additional 700 physicians are expected to be added to the program over the next few months.

CareShare Results Distribution accelerates the distribution of patient records, such as diagnostic test reports and discharge information, to care providers and health organizations. Previously, these types of documents would have been delivered by mail or courier service.

The pilot at QCH was designed to demonstrate TELUS CareShare's smooth and easy integration with QCH's Meditech system, document archive and electronic medical record (EMR) systems. These systems are similar to those deployed in more than 70 per cent of Canadian hospitals. The CareShare solution is nationally scalable to address similar patient care issues from coast-to-coast.

"TELUS has more than 12 years of experience delivering cloud-based solutions to healthcare organizations enabling them to turn information into better health outcomes," explained Paul Lepage, senior vice-president, TELUS Health Solutions. "We're excited to be applying this expertise through our CareShare services to help Queensway Carleton share patient information with family doctors quickly and efficiently to improve care continuity, reduce the costs of using traditional distribution channels and, most importantly, to enhance patient care and satisfaction."

"The reaction from our primary care physicians has been overwhelmingly positive and we are thrilled with the result so far. This project demonstrates how Queensway Carleton is improving service delivery to patients outside of the acute care setting and into the community," said Michael Cohen, vice-president clinical support and information management, chief privacy officer, Queensway Carleton Hospital. "We believe this will have a positive impact on patient satisfaction and, best of all, the CareShare Results Distribution service is an asset that can be leveraged across the region."

Physicians involved in the pilot with QCH have three notification and document delivery options including:

Email notification that a document is available for them;
Secure access web portal where physicians and their staff can view available documents and retrieve documents to review, save locally for attachment to their EMR or print;
Receiving documents by fax.

When a patient has been discharged from the emergency department or admitted to the hospital the CareShare service notifies the physician when new information is available. Documents are loaded onto the portal for retrieval and distributed based on the physician's instructions. CareShare Results Distribution service is completely secure because documents are not stored within CareShare but retrieved from the hospital's document repository on demand.

TELUS CareShare enables care providers to securely gather information from multiple sources and then share it across the continuum of care using web-based health tools and eventually, electronic medical record (EMR) systems. CareShare is offered through Software as a Service (SaaS) or Cloud Computing models where users simply subscribe to a service, connect to the cloud and take advantage of the available services.

About TELUS Health Solutions
TELUS Health Solutions is a leader in telehealth, electronic health records, remote patient monitoring, mobile home and community care, consumer health, benefits management and pharmacy management. Our solutions give health authorities, providers, physicians, patients and consumers the power to enhance decision making and improve outcomes for Canadians. TELUS Health Solutions is transforming how information is used across the continuum of care from hospital to home with solutions that foster collaboration, drive prevention and empower care teams and patients. TELUS Health Solutions is Canada's leading Healthcare IT Company as cited by the Branham Group for five years and for being honoured as the ITAC Health Company of the Year (2008) and Health Transformation Company of the Year (2009). For more information about TELUS Health Solutions, please visit www.telushealth.com.

About Queensway Carleton Hospital
Queensway Carleton Hospital is a patient and family-centred, urban community hospital providing a broad range of acute care services to the people of Ottawa and the Ottawa Valley. Employing over 1,800 health care professionals, the 264-bed, Queensway Carleton Hospital is the secondary referral centre for the Ottawa Valley. Hospital staff focuses on maintaining and enhancing their cornerstone programs - Emergency, Childbirth, Geriatrics, Mental Health, Medical and Surgical Services and Rehabilitation. Grounded on an environment of lifelong learning, the Queensway Carleton Hospital is a teaching partner with the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine and other healthcare programs and is committed to delivering a new standard of care for our community.

SOURCE TELUS Corporation