Press Release: Vancouver Island Health CEO Challenges Ontario to Embrace Patient Flow Innovation

Toronto, Ontario – May 10, 2006 – Howard Waldner, CEO of the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) spoke at the Economic Club of Toronto this morning, detailing the groundbreaking results achieved in patient flow in Alberta and British Columbia through the introduction of electronic innovation.

“Currently, approximately 12 – 20% of Canadian hospital acute care beds, at any one time can be blocked with patients who do not require in patient care in an acute care bed.” said Waldner. In Calgary and on Vancouver Island, “One of our plans for system redesign to address this issue was to introduce the Strata Resource Matching and E-Referral™ suite with the support of Strata Health Solutions Inc., resulting in a patient-centered process where patients are efficiently transitioned from acute beds to the appropriate community environment taking into account their specific circumstance. In our experience on Vancouver Island, this has quickly created a 30 -40% reduction in the number of assessed and waiting patients in acute care, better patient outcomes overall and reduced overall system stress.”

Since becoming CEO in 2004, Waldner has led VIHA through a program of change to more effectively integrate service delivery across the continuum of care, and to develop a greater focus on primary care capacity, quality and patient safety. Mr. Waldner’s presentation focused on the dramatic results he has achieved both at VIHA and the Calgary Health Region through his partnership with Strata Health Solutions and the implementation of their Strata Resource Matching and E-Referral™ tool.

Strata Resource Matching and E-Referral™ is a proven web-based bed management tool supporting the transitionof clients from acute care or community to the broad continuum of supported living environments, including care centers, sub-acute and palliative. This patient-centred system streamlines existing processes by automating the matching process of identifying patient needs and linking them with bed resource to better facilitate admissions, discharges and transfers within the community system, maximizing service capacity and positively impacting both acute and community resources.

“Howard Waldner’s recognition of the advantages of Strata Resource Matching and E-Referral™ has resulted instronger health care for his constituents and serves as a best-practice model for what can be done right here in Ontario,” said Don Schick, President and CEO of Strata Health Solutions. “Electronic health initiatives such as Strata Resource Matching and E-Referral™ are providing clinicians with comprehensive, real-time information, which allows them to make the point-of-care decisions based on individual client’s needs and frees up precious health care resources for additional patients. The focus of technology really must be to empower clinicians at the front-lines in their day-to-day duties. The focus to positively assist the front-line health worker drives our Company product development completely.”

In his presentation, Waldner also announced a new $1.8 million grant from Canada Health Infoway’s Innovation and Adoption program which will result in a new strategic partnership between VIHA and Strata Health Solutions around Mental Health and Addictions. This project will implement front-line electronic tools that will, for the first time, seamlessly match clients with mental health and addictions challenges to the most appropriate care in the community.