Wednesday October 3rd,
9:00 – 10:00 am

An opportunity for joint collaboration between two different organizations, William Osler Health Centre (WOHC) and Halton Healthcare Services (HHS), resulted in the development of a portal called REACH (Rapid Electronic Access to Clinical Health information). Clinicians from both organizations now have easy and timely access to patient data. The benefits of high quality treatment and follow up anytime from anywhere significantly enhance patient care and outcomes. Recognizing that the emerging Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) would result in porous organization boundaries, the portal is part of the organizations broader eHealth strategy. The addition of Credit Valley Hospital not only has increased the integration possibilities within one LHIN, but across LHIN boundaries. As a result, collaboration with LHIN partners to expand the use of REACH is ongoing. WOHC is becoming a virtual health centre with service delivery and information connections to consumers and providers across the entire health spectrum via portal technology. This technology allows for expandable "presentation layer". In essence, the portal’s landing page is "one stop shopping" for the user as it will become the organization' single launching platform for all other applications through REACH. By the fall of 2007, RIS and eHIM will also be integrated through the portal. During this session, participants will gain increased knowledge of portal technology, what REACH is, why it was important to build and how it has enhanced clinical workflow. Lessons learned, change management activities and successes required to promote the effective use of portal technology by physicians, nursing and allied health and eventually all employees will be shared.

Liz Nemeth is a Electronic Health Record Assessment, Planning and Implementation Consultant for Healthtech Inc. She has over 20 years experience in health care with a particular focus in management of clinical operations, professional staff development and shared governance. She was actively involved in building infrastructure for computerized clinical documentation and influenced and supported the development of a computerized documentation system specific for Maternal/Newborn population. Liz has also been involved in device assessment inventory and readiness assessment for CPOE and eMAR and has also been involved in process mapping and standards review for SPD. More recently, she has taken on the lead role in implementing multi-site clinical portal technology and integrating multiple applications through this portal. Liz is a member of the Canadian College of Health Service Executives and sits on the Board for the Nursing Leadership Network of Ontario; a Registered Nurse with a Master of Nursing Degree (Administration) from the University of Toronto, holds a Bachelors of Science in Nursing Degree from Ryerson Polytechnical University and is a member of the Golden Key National Honor Society.