CHIS- Led On Behalf of the Erie St. Clair LHINHospitals are increasingly adopting strategies and tools that enable them to monitor and report on their performance – from Wait Times to Alternate Level of Care (ALC) days; financial management to quality of care. To assist hospitals in meeting these accountability goals, while also addressing regional priorities, the Erie St. Clair LHIN Board approved one-time funding to support the selection and implementation of a single regional clinical utilization management software solution. In September, 2010, the Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) and Consolidated Health Information Services (CHIS) licensed the Medworxx Utilization Management System (UMS) for all of its hospitals. Under the leadership of a multi-organizational Steering Committee and Working Group comprising representatives from all five hospitals, the ESC CCAC and the ESC LHIN, planning and implementation began in the fall of 2010.
As of May 2011, Bluewater Health, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, Leamington District Memorial Hospital and Windsor Regional Hospital are live and using the Medworxx Utilization Management Tool on all medical/surgical nursing units. Hotel Dieu Grace Hospital is live on 2 medical and 3 surgical units, with the remaining medical units to be live September 2011.
Building on the success of the Project to date, as well as recognizing an opportunity to address a significant challenge for hospitals in ESC, the scope of the Project was expanded to include the Medworxx Alternate Level of Care (ALC) Assessment Module. This new module will assist hospitals in capturing enhanced detail for superior reporting on the new Ontario standardized ALC Definition. This module will specifically address prompt ALC designation and provide a new ALC Assessment feature to record and monitor ALC status, discharge destination and chronic co-payment details. It will also provide the flexibility and configurability to capture additional details around organizational specific terminology and processes.
The ALC data will be sent directly to Cancer Care Ontario in order to fulfill the Provincial Wait Time Information System reporting requirements.
In addition, the Project Steering Committee and Working Group, in consultation with the ESC LHIN, approved the additional criteria sets related to CCC, Rehabilitation and Mental Health for Phase II of the Project.
Click on the article below for more information about the successful Medworxx RCUM implementation in ESC