We’ve had another busy and productive year here at the eHealth Centre of Excellence, and we’re proud of what our team and partners across the community have achieved. We’d like to share a few of our highlights from 2019.   We were delighted when our Managing Director, Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia, was recognized as this year’s recipient of the Canadian Health Informatics Award (CHIA) Digital Health Executive of the Year. Well deserved!   Our team was out spreading the word on the benefits of digital health adoption. We presented at several events and conferences, including but not limited to: eHealth Canada 2019 AFHTO (Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario) – where we received top marks for best group presentation for our talk on our digital health toolbox!  Presentation pictured right. And most recently, we participated in the eConsult Centre of Excellence forum

Our digital health tools also hit some big milestones! Read more below:

Virtual Visits   There have been over 18,000 virtual visits (as of December 15, 2019) in the Waterloo Wellington region since our program launched in March 2018 – the most in any region in the province!   We were featured in the Waterloo Record and on 570 News!   In May, the virtual visits team received the Patient Care Innovation Team Award at the 2019 Canadian Health Informatics Awards (CHIA) Gala and in November, received a jury-selected ITAC Ingenious Award for our work. Thank you to the Ontario Telemedicine Network (OTN) and Think Research for being great partners.

eConsult   In the Waterloo Wellington region alone, nearly 12,000 eConsults have been sent since we launched the program locally in October 2016, with the eConsult Centre of Excellence providing great leadership.    Click here for an updated list of specialists from our region who are currently accepting eConsults.

The OTN eConsult platform underwent a big upgrade in November, enabling clinicians to access their local specialty groups more efficiently.

Tablets   We expanded the forms available in tablets to include not only mental health assessments but other questionnaires as well. Patients are now available to update their personal information in the tablet. All information entered into a tablet is uploaded directly to the provider’s EMR.

All Community Health Centres (CHCs) in Waterloo Wellington are now using tablets!

EMR Tools & Coaching   Our Community Portal launched! You can now download our EMR supports directly from the portal, and make use of the community forum to ask questions and provide feedback.

We made some great new updates for two of our EMR tools: the palliative care toolkit and our lower back pain tool.

EHR Tools   For 2019 latest about the Electronic Health Record, take a look at the latest connecting South West Ontario (cSWO) newsletter!

 

eReferral   As of December 15, 2019, over 93,000 eReferrals have been sent through the Ocean eReferral Network, the solution supported by our System Coordinated Access (SCA) program since we launched in August 2017! We would like to thank Think Research, CognisantMD, and the Centre for Effective Practice for the great collaborative effort.

In a recent survey (with more than 1500 participants), 96% of patients agreed that eReferral is an easy process and that eReferral notifications improve the patient experience.

We're looking forward to seeing what 2020 will bring! One thing is for sure: the future of healthcare is here.

We have an exciting announcement to share: in January 2020, the eHealth Centre of Excellence is launching a new division called eCE Automates!   eCE Automates will offer a suite of Intelligent Automation tools that support clinicians and organizations with improving information sharing, data quality, and efficiency so that patients can receive better quality care.   Intelligent Automation (IA) refers to any tech that mimics human actions but at a much higher speed & with more accuracy. Our tools are pieces of software (or “bots”) that will run 24/7 in the background of your system.

Our tools have many benefits: 

• Primary care workflow automation can help with workflow efficiency, reducing administrative burden and decreasing physician burnout
• Improving the quality of your data means you can use it more meaningfully to provide high value, proactive care
• When organizations across the care continuum are using standardized coordinated care plans (CCPs), they can be shared seamlessly with other providers in your Ontario Health Team (OHT)

Join our webinar in January to view a demo and see firsthand how our Intelligent Automation tools can positively impact your clinical workflow.

Register here!

Over the course of the past month, the first 24 Ontario Health Teams were announced with the combined goal of building a more connected and coordinated health care system.

The eHealth Centre of Excellence is able to support OHTs, and we look forward to collaborating with them to meet their digital health needs – our toolbox includes virtual visits in partnership with the Ontario Telemedicine Network (OTN), eConsult in partnership with the eConsult Centre of Excellence, eReferral, intelligent automation tools, and more!

Digital health will play a crucial role in this system transformation. Is your OHT ready? Contact us today if you’d like to hear more about the award-winning supports that we can provide: 

info@ehealthce.ca

Please click here to download the PDF.

Please click here to download the PDF.

Please click here to download the PDF.

Please click here to download the PDF.

We are excited to share that the eHealth Centre of Excellence’s Virtual Visits: Delivering Primary Care through Innovation has been judged as an ITAC (Information Technology Association of Canada) Ingenious Award winner in the SME Public/Not-for-Profit Category.

The ITAC Ingenious Awards were created to recognize all of the very best applications of technology from all corners of Canada and from all sectors, and to celebrate innovation and excellence. Thank you to ITAC and to the jury of judges for this honour – we are extremely proud of the work that our team is doing with patients and clinicians.

View the press release from ITAC here.

View more about the virtual visits award here.

We also recognize that we couldn’t lead this important work without continued support from our partners across the community. In particular, we’d like to extend our gratitude to the Ontario Telemedicine Network (OTN) and Think Research for their collaborations on this project.

Please click here to download the PDF.

We were delighted to have our virtual visits program featured in the Waterloo Record and on 570 News!

From the Record article: 

As the province pledges more funding to expand virtual care by doctors, this region is already embracing technology to make primary health care more convenient.

Since a pilot project launched in March 2018, nearly 17,000 virtual visits have been made in Waterloo Wellington — the most virtual visits in any region across the province.

Read more here!

Our Managing Director, Dr. Mohamed Alarakhia, was interviewed on the Mike Farwell show on 570 News Kitchener:

You can listen to the entire program here. (The interview took place on November 20)

These interviews come on the heels of the provincial announcement earlier this month that the first phase of the "Digital First for Health" strategy will focus on virtual care, with about 55,000 more video visits over the next year and $3 million in funding to compensate physicians.     Any Ontario Health Team (OHT) who is interested in the work we’re doing here should feel free to reach out to us at info@ehealthce.ca – we are happy to share what we’ve learned with you.