News: Strata Health eReferral System Connects Patients with Right Care

March 5th, 2008 – TORONTO, CANADA – To help improve patient flow and communication between health care organizations within the Greater Toronto Area, several of the Shared Information Management Services (SIMS) Partnership organizations are implementing Strata Resource Matching and E-Referral™, an online, real-time waitlist optimization system.

St. Joseph’s Health Centre (St. Joseph’s) was the first to launch the eReferral system with further expansion scheduled for University Health Network’s (UHN’s) Toronto General and Toronto Western hospitals as well as the Toronto Central Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) in the coming weeks.

When fully deployed, the system will electronically link St. Joseph’s and UHN’s General Internal Medicine patients to appropriate rehabilitation and complex continuing care facilities as well as Toronto Central CCAC home care services.

“The Strata Resource Matching and E-Referral system will allow our multidisciplinary care teams to make informed decisions about post-acute care placement for patients and improve communication among the participating organizations,” said Lydia Lee, Chief Information Officer of the SIMS Partnership. “Having a common place for managing referrals means we can be more aware of what services are required for our patients, and be more proactive in our overall planning.”

With the addition of the SIMS partner organizations as a client, Strata Resource Matching and E-Referral™ software is accelerating patient flow in Health Regions and Local Health Integration Networks serving more than eight million Canadians.

“It has been exciting to partner with the SIMS technology team and clinicians from each of the respective organizations,” added Darren Jones, Strata Health’s VP of Information Technology. “Much of our collective effort leading up to this launch has been in the development and implementation of innovative interfaces between Strata Resource Matching and E-Referral and the SIMS enterprise that will optimize PathWays use at the frontline.”

SIMS is the name given to the information management and technology (IM/IT) partnership between 13 health care organizations in the Greater Toronto Area. The group spans the acute, rehabilitation, complex continuing, long-term and community care sectors. With similar values, these organizations identify, plan and implement joint IM/IT, safety and process improvement initiatives that will contribute to a coordinated and integrated health care delivery system.