South Okanagan General Hospital Becomes First Canadian Site to Achieve Stage 6
(7/7/2009)

A MEDITECH customer for more than 20 years, South Okanagan General Hospital (Oliver, BC), is the first Canadian site to achieve Stage 6 Electronic Medical Record (EMR) adoption recognition from HIMSS Analytics. South Okanagan is part of the Interior Health Authority (Kelowna, BC), which serves a geographical area of almost 215,000 square kilometres and is comprised of 180 sites, including 22 acute care hospitals.

"This distinction is a real honor for Interior Health," says Mal Griffin, CIO at Interior. "We're very appreciative of HIMSS Analytics for extending its efforts into Canada."

Griffin credits South Okanagan's dedicated team with bringing Stage 6 to fruition. "We are very fortunate to have the support of our administration, physicians, and all our staff members at South Okanagan," he says. "I'm very proud of what we have accomplished."

The same sentiments are echoed by those who were at the heart of the organization's quality efforts. "Achieving Stage 6 is a huge accomplishment and one that has resulted from having a great team in place," says Josie Wilson, clinical practice specialist. "It has been challenging being the only Canadian hospital at this stage of the process, because we've had to forge new ground. But now we feel we are at a great advantage."

Advancing Health Care I.T. Enterprise-wide
Achieving Stage 6 is only one of the many accomplishments to take note of at Interior, and South Okanagan in particular. In 2006, South Okanagan won a prestigious Organizational Transformation Health Award for successfully implementing MEDITECH's CPOE to support both quality and patient safety. In addition, 2005 marked the year Interior became the first regional EHR in British Columbia, as the Health Authority consolidated multiple data centers and systems into a single MEDITECH MAGIC platform. This set the stage for Interior to plan strategically for MEDITECH's 6.0 system.

Focusing on standardization and business process re-engineering to incorporate best practice solutions, Interior was also one of MEDITECH's first Canadian customers to sign for 6.0, with an anticipated LIVE date of 2011. "We believe 6.0 will help us reach the next level of care delivery," states Griffin. "We are particularly excited about the new user interface, enhanced role-based desktops, and the overall combined infrastructure and application changes available within the new platform."

Griffin's enthusiasm is matched by that of MEDITECH's President and COO, Howard Messing. "We are very proud to be in partnership with Interior, as the Health Authority continues on its journey to enhance clinical decision-making and quality of care for its citizens," he says.

 

 

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