Canada
United Kingdom
October 12th, 2007 – TORONTO, ON – Focused on cutting wait times for their patients and clients, the Shared Information Management Services (SIMS) partners have teamed up with Strata Health Solutions to deliver groundbreaking eReferral functionality across eight of the 13 SIMS Partnership’s health care organizations in the Greater Toronto Area.
By implementing Strata Resource Matching and E-Referral™, an online, real-time waitlist optimization system, front line clinicians at SIMS partner organizations will be provided real-time information on appropriate bed availability for post-acute patients to care providers in the community.
“The PathWays system will allow our multidisciplinary care teams to make informed decisions about post-acute care placement for patients and improve communication amongst the participating organizations,” said Matthew Anderson, CIO of the SIMS Partnership. “Having a common place for managing referrals means we can begin to be more aware of what services are required for our patients and be more proactive in our overall planning.”
Strata Health successfully pioneered the use of web-based software to accelerate delivery of chosen community care for patients discharging from hospital. As an example of results achieved, before the Calgary Health Region adopted Strata Resource Matching and E-Referral™, their post-acute patients lay in bed up to 19 days longer than required. Post-implementation, the average placement delays dropped to six days.
With the addition of the SIMS partner organizations, Strata Resource Matching and E-Referral™ will be working on accelerating patient flow in Health Regions and Local Health Integration Networks serving more than eight million Canadians.
“It is an honour that the SIMS Partnership has chosen us to support a ‘best practice’ delivery of improved, faster referral of discharging patients to post-acute care,” said Don Schick, CEO of Strata Health Solutions. “We have had such a productive dialogue with the SIMS Partners and the LHIN during the selection process, and have come to respect their clinicians’ patient-centric vision immensely. This project will break new ground for Toronto and Ontario health care in support of that vision.”
Strata Health will undertake unique development in support of this project, with the first phase of the project going live in January 2008.
Strata Health has partnered with Courtyard Group to deliver premier consulting and change management services with a focus on front line clinician engagement to achieve best practice processes – which will be supported within the Strata Resource Matching and E-Referral™ software to the benefit of clients and clinicians.
The new PathWays Referral™ module expands the Strata Resource Matching and E-Referral™ software suite to support hospital referrals, as well as other community and acute programs that do not necessarily have a fixed capacity.
About The SIMS Partnership: (www.simspartners.ca)
Shared Information Management Services (SIMS) is the information management and technology (IM/IT) partnership between 13 health care organizations in the Greater Toronto Area. The group spans the acute, rehabilitation, complex continuing, long-term and community care sectors. With similar values, these organizations commit to identifying, planning and implementing joint IM/IT, safety and process improvement initiatives that will contribute to a coordinated and integrated health care delivery system.
The SIMS Partnership includes Bridgepoint Health, Central Community Care Access Centre, COTA Health, North York General Hospital, Providence Healthcare, St. John’s Rehab Hospital, St. Joseph’s Health Centre, Toronto Central Community Care Access Centre, Toronto East General Hospital, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network, West Park Healthcare Centre and Women’s College Hospital.
About Strata Health Solutions Inc: (www.stratahealth.com) Strata Health leverages technology to dramatically improve patient flow within health systems. Our clients say they’ve entrusted us with the job of achieving real and dramatic benefits for patients, patients’ families and the world’s devoted front line caregivers. Operational in Canada, the UK and Australia, Strata Health is a privately-held Canadian corporation. It is comprised of professionals with empathy for those who need care and intense respect for those who devote themselves to caring for others.
Strata Resource Matching and E-Referral™ is an online, real-time waitlist optimization system. Connected to care providers in the community, it provides front line clinicians with real-time information on appropriate bed availability for post-acute patients. The system radically reduces the time that patients occupy acute care beds after they have been assessed for release into alternative supported living facilities – including care centres, assisted living, sub-acute, palliative and adult day programs.
About Courtyard Group: www.courtyard-group.com Courtyard Group is a healthcare transformation company. Working with and for clients in the healthcare industry is all we do. We combine a deep, core knowledge of healthcare systems management and planning, change management, information management and technology with the disciplines of systems engineering, law, business, operations management and several areas of clinical practice. Our team is diverse and 150 consultants strong, operating from offices across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. We are united by a common mission and singular, unwavering focus on delivering practical, concrete results.
Courtyard Group is passionate about healthcare. We are dedicated to our clients. We do whatever it takes to enable their success.