e-Health -- a moment of clarity

I had the opportunity to attend the October session of the CE LHIN board meetings and I must confess to leaving the latter with a quizzical look and my mind running in overdrive; the Project Management Office gave an excellent overview of what the "rubber hitting the road" was like for them -- the latter was actually an inspiration for the previous post, in that I feel we need to hear more of the experiences of the folks on the front lines.

During the afore-mentioned presentation, I thought I heard something to the effect that efforts at implementing the various e-Health initiatives (such as a data center consolidation amongst the LHINs) were being stymied by the various hospitals bringing along their lawyers to the meetings.
On the way home, I began beating up on myself for not listening more attentively, for I determined there was no way LHINs could be shooting themselves in the foot by funding lawyers to, at best, slow down the progress being made with their projects, or so I thought...

Fast forward to November 30th, 2010 -- I was vegetating in front of the TV after a hectic day; flicking through the channels during commercials, I came across a TVO episode entitled "Patient-Centered care".
I quickly got back into listening mode and was taken aback at what I was hearing; stuff like "turf wars" amongst Healthcare Providers (HCPs) was vigorously being debated.
Elinor Caplan, a former Minister of Health for Ontario described one of her experiences that really had me shaking my head -- basically, she had met with two hospital boards that were planning the implementation of e-Health systems and pleaded with them to at least ensure compatibility was included in their specifications.
What did the hospitals do? They ignored her request, shored up their turf and ended up with systems that couldn't "talk" to each other, in effect creating more islands of information.

I have always contended that the state of e-Health in Ontario was not due to any lack of technology or security (systems that allow us online access to our income taxes or banking information are solid testaments), so the above discussions really put things into perspective for me.

So, what will it take to get some movement away from this "my patient data" way of thinking? Well, one way or another, it's got to happen.
Now, I'm not optimistic that HCPs will become altruistic and voluntarily begin sharing their data overnight, so I suspect we'll see something mandated by early 2012, at the latest.
I think we've had enough discussion -- it's now time for action -- the current state of affairs is unsustainable.

I wish you a safe and joyous holiday season and look forward to one interesting year ahead.


Ernest A. James

President & CEO
Regal Informatics Inc.