Telus chips in $100 million to support healthcare technology development

Telus Corp. is expanding its commitment to the healthcare sector by investing $100 million in research and development to support a variety of technologies aimed at addressing the lack of electronic patient information and automated patient health records in Canada.Joe Natale, executive VP and president of Telus Business Solutions, said the investment will be directed at applications such as mobile health solutions, collaborative medicine, robust and secure data networks as well as advanced clinical process management. "We all live in a world where we carry a personal device in our pockets, so our expectations become much higher when it comes to the availability of information," said Natale, noting electronic health records and claims management is the backbone of the technology transformation in healthcare.Telus is already a big player in the field of electronic healthcare, having acquired Emergis earlier this year, which has since been rebranded as Telus Health Solutions. Natale noted that the company's health claims processing activities extend to more than 8.5 million Canadians through the Telus Assure benefit cards. Within the prescription drugs sector, more than 3,000 pharmacies use pharmacy management applications to manage drug and medical information.The investment comes on the heels of an Ipsos-Reid poll that has found the majority of Canadians are in the dark ages when it comes to tracking medical information. More than half (55%) are tracking their medical history on paper.The survey found that more than 90% of respondents said inefficiencies in the healthcare system could be corrected by the additional exchange of information among healthcare providers and medical professionals. In addition, 93% said medical errors could be avoided through improved collaboration between medical professionals using technology. The survey also found that 87% believe that electronic health records help medical professionals make better decisions when addressing the issues of patients.The funds will enhance existing patient information platforms at specific sites in Canada, namely Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto and the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal. The money will also be used to push for greater adoption of Telus' healthcare platform in facilities throughout Canada.Capturing information electronically will enable clinicians to make better decisions, said Francois Côté, president of Telus Health Solutions. "That is going to be designed at focusing our R&D effort and helping design and improve our systems," he said, noting better use of clinical health information will result in better health outcomes.Cote acknowledged that Canada Health Infoway has done "very good work" in helping put in place critical infrastructure to permit electronic management of health records. Telus' offers electronic health record solutions that fit the CHI blueprint for the electronic health record.Jean Huot, CIO at the McGill University Health Centre, a client of Telus, said the cash infusion would result in better care for patients through the sharing of clinical information.At present, Canada lags behind other jurisdictions such as Denmark, New Zealand, and Australia when it comes to technology adoption in healthcare. Between 20% and 25% of Canadian physicians have adopted electronic medical record systems, noted Alan Brookstone, founder of Canadian EMR, a national resource for physicians, medical office staff, healthcare planners, government organizations, and vendors of EMR systems.Brookstone said one of the "greenfields" that has not yet been a focal point in electronic medical system is the referral consultation process whereby primary care physicians refer patients to specialists electronically and receive consultation reports back. "Electronic signatures need to be well integrated and used, so that we seamlessly prescribe to a pharmacy," added Brookstone.Wayne Gudbranson, president and CEO of the Branham group, said the cash infusion is welcome in healthcare, an area that is underserved from an information communication technology investment standpoint in Canada.One of the challenges in the area of healthcare technology will be how vendors like Telus measure their return on investment (ROI), noted Côté. "It's not yet a science," he said. "It's more of an art."Indeed, freeing up capacity and freeing up time through improved clinical decisions are regarded as a "soft return" that is more difficult to quantify. Cost avoidance and the elimination of duplicate laboratory tests are tangible measures of ROI, said Côté.Natale compared the cost of a $4,000 hospital visit to a $100 home care visit, noting remote patient monitoring will allow people to avoid entering the hospital for costly visits. "Those are very, very clear savings on that front," he said.Moreover, private sector investment in health care will bring new financing models to the table that will enable facilities like hospitals to use healthcare technology solutions and be charged on a transactional basis by the provider, for example, said Natale.Natale didn't rule out future acquisitions of companies that already provide healthcare solutions to expand health technology offerings to clients, noting it had acquired Emergis, a security company called Assurent, and multimedia streaming company called FastVibe.

Telus chips in $100 million to support healthcare technology development

News | 11/24/2008 12:17 pm EST

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