Intelliware modernizes patient referrals.

Intelliware modernizes patient referrals for continuing care.

Continuing Care e-Health, today part of Community Care Information Management (CCIM), supports a diverse group of clients including local health integration networks, home care and support providers, community mental health and addiction organizations, and long-term care homes in Ontario.

Challenge

Continuing Care’s outdated referral process depended on paper, fax, and e-forms. With so many types of care services available and more than three million referrals and service orders processed annually, the existing labour-intensive referral system resulted in inefficiencies that caused frustration and service delays for both care providers and clients.

The agency required a referrals technology solution that could electronically transmit referrals for action, while tracking and collecting event information to measure service delivery wait times. The application required the use of HL7 messaging standards and the capacity to communicate with the existing messaging infrastructure in order to be rolled out acrossthe province to support referrals for the entire sector.

Solution

Intelliware built a web-based application that gathered information about a care referral and formatted the referral data using HL7 standard messages. Intelliware delivered the application in the time frame required as a result of existing Intelliware expertise with HL7 v2.x and v3, and existing Intelliware utilities and frameworks that could handle the construction and marshalling of HL7 messages. Additionally, Intelliware’s Agile development approach was a key factor in selection for this project and in the ability to deliver within the required timeframes. The application continues to serve patients and healthcare service providers today.