Community health care workers get injection of wireless technology innovation

Toronto, ON – TELUS today announced it has signed a contract with Closing the Gap Healthcare Group, an Ontario-based community healthcare services provider, to implement the TELUS Community Care Management Solution (CCMS). CCMS is a complete electronic health record and patient management system that makes patient data available to community, home care and long-term care providers wherever their jobs take them.

Health providers use a mobile device, such as a laptop or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), at the point of care to view and update patient records, access test results and instantly share information with other health providers. With secure, 24/7 access to the system, care providers can reduce their administrative workloads and quickly and accurately generate reports while delivering timely, quality care to their patients.

“Closing the Gap Healthcare Group is committed to building and supporting a high-quality, publicly-funded healthcare system that is sustainable for Canadians, both now and in the future,” said Connie Clerici, president and CEO. “As part of our efforts to achieve this, we are pioneering the use of a new Community Care Management Solution that will assist us to optimize direct patient care time, increase patient safety through one-time recording of clinical notes at the point of care, and improve patient outcomes by facilitating sharing of healthcare information across the continuum of care.”

TELUS has an exclusive partnership agreement with Healthphone, a New Zealand based software company, to implement and host their software solutions in Canada. CCMS is powered by Healthphone, Microsoft’s global lead solution partner for long term condition management. It is designed specifically for any health care organization whose work force is highly mobile.

“Using the power of mobile technology, remote healthcare workers can now receive real-time care information at their fingertips, improving the way care is delivered,” explained Barry Rivelis, TELUS vice-president for health care. “By partnering with Healthphone and Microsoft, we are bringing together world-class partners with a tested solution to truly revolutionize the way information is delivered in the home and community care market in Canada.”

Through this agreement, TELUS will implement the CCMS solution, host and manage the application, provide network connectivity and security support, provide 24x7 customer service and required hardware such as PDA’s and mobile phones, as well as all infrastructure and servers. The CCMS application is delivered as a fully hosted and managed service using the Microsoft Office platform.

“TELUS is one of the world’s leading telecommunications providers, and will be an essential partner for Healthphone to make in-roads into the Canadian market,” said Matt Hector-Taylor, president and Chief Strategy Officer for Healthphone. “Our software is smart and flexible, and because it’s mobile-based it fits well with TELUS’ mobile capabilities and longer-term mobile strategies.”