Newswise — COTA Health, North York General Hospital, St. Joseph's Health Centre and Toronto East General Hospital are looking to do their part for their patients and clients in modernizing the health care system. The organizations have decided to team up and join Shared Information Management Services (SIMS), an information management and technology (IM/IT) group that is now shared between 13 health care organizations.
The group works on integrating projects across the entire partnership, including confidentially sharing patient information online to help improve referrals, enhance patient safety through the elimination of transcription errors and reduce the amount of time patients have to wait to receive services.
"As an organization that truly believes patients need a continuity of care and service, from both inside and outside our walls, we are happy to participate in a partnership that will help facilitate this process," says Bonnie Adamson, President and CEO, North York General Hospital. "We look forward to working together with SIMS to share information across the health care system, and in the end do what's best for patients."
Other members of the partnership include Bridgepoint Health, Central Community Care Access Centre (CCAC), Providence Healthcare, St. John's Rehab Hospital, Toronto Central CCAC, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network, West Park Healthcare Centre and Woman's College Hospital. Each organization is involved with integrating projects across the entire collaboration.
"We look forward to collaborating with our SIMS partners to maximize technology as a lever for further enhancing the continuity, integration, safety and quality of care we collectively provide to our patients," says Rob Devitt, Toronto East General Hospital's President and CEO. "This partnership supports our hospital's commitment to wisely and innovatively steward health care resources to achieve the highest standard of patient care."
The addition of the four new organizations represents an intriguing impact on the direction of SIMS. North York General Hospital, St. Joseph's Health Centre and Toronto East General Hospital adds substantially to the group's impact and reach within the acute care sector, while COTA Health is the group's first foray deep into the provision of care in the community. "
To date, our work through the CCACs has been up to the point of commissioning the work and reporting back to the organization," says Matthew Anderson, CIO of the SIMS Partnership. "COTA Health helps bring technology into the home and right to the client. This is an extremely unique opportunity as, combined with North York General, St. Joseph's, Toronto East General and our current partners, we have truly expanded to touch virtually every sector in health care."
With similar values and a relationship founded on trust, all 13 organizations commit to identifying, planning and implementing IM/IT initiatives that will contribute to a coordinated health care delivery system. Shared initiatives may extend beyond IM/IT implementations to include process and quality improvement, shared care delivery programs and safety initiatives. The common element is the enhancement of information utilization between the partnering organizations to support the continuity of care within the context of client/patient transitions."
St. Joseph's is committed to innovation and clinical excellence. Joining SIMS enhances our work to improve access and flow, patient safety and integrated, coordinated health care service delivery," explains Carolyn Baker, President and CEO of St. Joseph's Health Centre. "This partnership provides us with an opportunity to collaborate with other health care organizations to improve referral processes and chronic disease management systems while also furthering stewardship of our resources."
COTA Health will participate in SIMS in a similar fashion to the majority of the partners, with SIMS becoming their internal IT department. North York General Hospital, St. Joseph's Health Centre and Toronto East General Hospital have mature internal IT departments that SIMS will work with to implement shared projects.
"We are very excited to join the partnership," says Patricia (Trish) Barbato, President and Chief Executive Officer, COTA Health. "This partnership will assist us in pursuing key strategic objectives related to information management and technology that will support the provision of high quality service to our clients."
Together through SIMS, these 13 organizations are transforming the way health care is delivered.
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