SIMS Partnership to revise structure and change the name to the GTA Health Information Collaborative (HIC).

(Toronto, March 2, 2010) - An information management and information technology (IM/IT) partnership between 16 health care organizations in the Greater Toronto Area is getting a facelift. With the increasing size of the SIMS Partnership, members have elected to revise the group's structure to a more formal 'association' and change the name to the GTA Health Information Collaborative (HIC). A sub-set of the group that shares IM/IT resources will continue under the SIMS Partnership name and as a major IM/IT delivery partner for the region.
"This is the next step in the evolution of our growing IM/IT partnership," said Barry McLellan, Chair of the GTA HIC and President and CEO of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. "As health care organizations across the GTA collaborate further on these types of projects, we can only stand to improve the experience for our patients. SIMS provided a great foundation for this important step in our development and this association continues to move in the right direction for the Ontario health care system."

Since its inception in 2004, the SIMS partners have worked on integrating projects across all participating organizations, which consist of acute, rehabilitation, community, complex continuing and long-term care facilities. The group has leveraged IM/IT as a key enabler for health system improvement, increasing electronic charting capability, streamlining and standardizing referral processes and improving the use of information to support patient safety, better access to care and more optimal use of health care resources.

The SIMS Partnership's collective success and commitment to improve patient care has benefitted each partner organization as well as the broader health care system.

"Through SIMS, we worked together to improve and achieve the seamless transition of care for clients across the health care field, securely exchanging client information as needed between acute care, cancer care, CCACs, long-term care facilities, community providers and rehab," said Camille Orridge, CEO of the Toronto Central Community Care Access Centre. "As we have grown, we realized we needed a renewed structure to maintain the momentum. The association continues on this path - meeting the needs of our clients."

Governance for the association will be provided by CEOs of all member organizations and a selected Chair. The GTA HIC will continue to drive high quality clinical and service collaboration and integration in the GTA, enabled by the IM/IT expertise provided through the SIMS Partnership and the resources of the other individual organizations.

To date, the association's members include Bridgepoint Health, Central Community Care Access Centre, Humber River Regional Hospital, North York General Hospital, Providence Healthcare, St. John's Rehab Hospital, St. Joseph's Health Centre, St. Michael's Hospital, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto Central Community Care Access Centre, Toronto East General Hospital, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, Trillium Health Centre, University Health Network, West Park Healthcare Centre and Women's College Hospital.

For further information, please contact:
Patti Enright, Senior Communications Advisor,
Shared Information Management Services (SIMS)
Tel: (416) 340-4800 ext. 4097
E-mail: Patti Enright.

The Academy of Canadian Executive Nurses (ACEN) invites you to a 2-hour discussion focused on Transforming Care.

On Friday, February 5, 2010, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Toronto time . . . .  three keynotes speakers will share their insights and contribute to a discussion led by Mary Ferguson Paré of the University Health Network. The program has been designed by Dr. Ross Baker of the University of Toronto and he will provide the context and introduce the session.

Your hosts are ACEN members and Dr. Mary Ferguson Paré and Dr. Ross Baker.

You do not have to be an ACEN member to participate in the webcast.

We have three noted guest presenters. Details below.

THIS IS A WEBCAST made available to all users by BAXTER

[We do have 20 seats left at the University Health Network in Toronto where the actual presentations are hosted. We will fill those seats on a first come basis.]

Here are registration details:

The Academy of Canadian Executive Nurses (ACEN) presents:

Transforming Care

University Health Network
Room 1EN 429/430
University Health Network, Toronto
 
AND
 
By WEBCAST

Time: 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.  EST

If you would like to participate in-person at the University Health Network (only 20 seats available) Click here to REGISTER (note we can only accept another 20 people at the conference site. First come | first served.)

If you would like to participate directly by webcast Click here to REGISTER

If  you would like your hospital to participate in this event, please contact your hospital's onsite OTN Coordinator. SITE COORDINATORS: Please register your site here

Out of Province: Please contact the Ontario Telemedicine Network at: scheduling@otn.ca to register for the event.  Include the following reference number 9146668

---

ACEN 2010 ANNAUL MEETING FACULTY

TRANSFORMING CARE AT THE BEDSIDE: Patricia Rutherford, RN, MS, Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement

PRESENTATION: Will present IHI’s program: Transforming Care at the Bedside (TCAB), a national program of RWJF and IHI, that engages leaders at all levels of the organization to: Improve the quality and safety of patient care on medical and surgical units | Increase the vitality and retention of nurses | Engage and improve the patient’s | family members’ experience of care | Improve the effectiveness of the entire care team

 

BACKGROUND: Manages IHI's programs in

·         Clinical office practice redesign

·         Improving access and flow in specialty practices

·         Optimizing care coordination and transitions in care, and the

·         Transforming Care at the Bedside initiative.

·         Co-investigator for the STate Action on Avoidable Rehospitalizations (STAAR) initiative.

·         process improvement, innovation, and idealized design

·         large-scale performance improvement initiatives.

RELEASING TIME TO CARE:  Marlene Smadu, RN, MA, PhD,   Associate Dean College of Nursing,

                        University of Saskatchewan

PRESENTATION: Will discuss Saskatchewan’s initiatives related to The UK-based program is called "Releasing Time to Care: The Productive Ward". It empowers nurses, and other members of care teams, to look at how their ward is organized and to make changes that allow them to spend more time with patients.

BACKGROUND:

·         Chair CPSI Education and Professional Development Committee

·         Vice Chair, Saskatchewan Health Quality Council

·         Member of the Quality Worklife-Quality Healthcare Collaborative.

·         Focus on health human resources, aboriginal health, health policy and knowledge transfer

WORK REDESIGN:   Patricia O’Connor, RN, MSc(A), CHE, Associate Director of Nursing, MUHC

PRESENTATION: Will present the impact of Work Redesign on the quality of care and the work environments

BACKGROUND: Commonwealth Fund Harkness Associate in Health Policy & Practice Neurosciences Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, McGill University

·         Guest faculty member of the Canadian Patient Safety Institute’s Safer Health Care Now National Falls Prevention Collaborative

·         Fellowship – the EXTRA Program with CHSRF

·         Fellow in the Canadian College of Health Service Executives.

·         Past President of the Academy of Canadian Executive Nurses.

WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK BAXTER FOR THEIR GENEROUS SUPPORT TO ENABLE THIS INTERNATIONAL WEBCAST. 

Conditions Therapies Products Services About Baxter

Baxter Worldwide > Canada

 

Getting a Dialogue Started

The comments below from Dominic Covvey are posted as a starting point for a discussion on ehealth and where we find ourselves today in the rollout of electronic records at all levels (within physician’s offices, regional health authorities, provincial and national strategies). Several recent auditor generals’ reports - one on ehealth in Ontario (http://www.ehealthontario.on.ca/pdfs/News/AG_Report_en.pdf) and the other at the federal level on electronic health records and the role of CHI (http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/docs/parl_oag_200911_04_e.pdf) provide background material for some of the concerns over consultants and their fees, accountability, achievement of targets, and the costs of implementing an EHR.

An initial human resources ‘sector scan’ undertaken jointly by CHIMA, COACH, ICTC and ITAC Health has also provided a snapshot of the number of qualified professionals in health informatics and health information management, or the ehealth workforce more generally, and shows there is both a skill shortage (available workers who need to upgrade skills to incorporate knowledge of health information technology and informatics) and a labor shortage (a general lack and availability of skilled ehealth workers) (https://www.echima.ca/media/documents/HIHIM_report_E_web.pdf). The latter study concludes that “There is a serious risk that labour shortages and skills shortages will constrain the successful implementation of EHIS technologies in Canada…System-based, human resources planning measures should be a priority to ensure that the substantial investments that governments at all levels are making in EHIS technologies deliver the promised benefits.”

I have provided links to these documents and Dominic Covvey’s comments to get the dialogue started. What are the problems and more importantly how can we address them? We hope that this blog will form a forum for discussion, commentary, sharing of ideas, and feedback.

“Related to what some have termed the “ehealth debacle”, I am sure that there are at least as many opinions regarding causal factors as there are people opining. However, an understanding of our situation and what we are trying to do through ehealth certainly leads to some reasonable hypotheses about why things are not entirely copacetic. Consider the following possibilities: (1) the lack, or inadequate quality, of oversight, (2) less than full accountability, (3) the sometimes ‘bum’s rush’ to get ehealth projects underway and get EHR components in place…although perhaps not always the right components given true needs, (4) the ‘fire hose’ of funding from which only consultants seem to be able to drink, (5) the absence or weakness of the business case for, and of the evidence of the proven value of, ehealth with the consequent challenge of deciding in what to invest, how much, and what’s enough, (6) the reticence to recognize the magnitude of the ehealth challenge and what we will need to invest to realize our dreams, and (7) the dearth of fully qualified ehealth professionals. I personally believe that each of these contributes to the current embarrassing situation. A perhaps very important factor is that we have not yet recognized the magnitude and dimensionality of the challenges we face…in other words, we don’t, or aren’t willing, to fully comprehend the problem we are confronting.”

A $32 million University-Based Training Program Funding Opportunities Announcement was released December 17th. National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)

A $32 million University-Based Training Program Funding Opportunities Announcement was released December 17th. Through a competitive process, eight or more 4 year institutions of higher education will receive grants to establish programs that will rapidly increase the availability of graduates in vital highly specialized health IT roles over the course of three years.

Please note that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will be hosting a Technical Assistance call for potential University-Based Training Program applicants on Tuesday, January 5th from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM EST.

Interested parties are encouraged to join the call using the following information:

To participate:
• https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/dt/join?id=P4Z656&role=attend&pw=7B%29CMkR
• Audio
o Dial in number: 877-601-4720
o Participant passcode: 1414879

For detailed information on the University-Based Training Program visit http://healthit.hhs.gov/universitytraining.

There will be time reserved for a Question and Answer session. Please be advised that the TA call will be a listen only event as questions can only be accepted electronically. You are encouraged to submit questions in advance to university-based-training@hhs.gov. During the call, questions will be accepted via the questions tab in the Live Meeting environment.

A previous technical assistance call was held in December 23, and a PowerPoint slide presentation from the call is available at http://healthit.hhs.gov/universitytraining.

Visit http://healthit.hhs.gov/hitechgrants for information on additional HITECH funding opportunities.

First Time Users:
To save time before the meeting, check your system to make sure it is ready to use Microsoft Office Live Meeting.



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