Canadians Now Benefit From Radiology Quality Monitored in RealTime

Toronto, Ontario – November 21, 2013 – The Integrated Department of Diagnostic Services at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) and St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (SJHH) are the first in Canada to successfully deploy a radiology peer review and quality assurance platform that works in real-time. In this city-wide implementation, four hospitals went live on October 7th with the first-ever cross-institutional, cross-system, prospective peer review platform. Unlike legacy systems, the new software platform is capable of helping physicians catch mistakes before a patient’s diagnostic report is finalized.

Last year, HHS and SJHH elected to pilot RealTime Medical’s context-aware workflow management and quality assurance software platform, DiaShare™ QUALITY, to address the shortcomings they identified with their legacy quality assurance solution. Historically, peer review systems have been primarily retrospective and sometimes took months after a diagnosis had been rendered. This could be too late to make a difference for the patient affected. In addition, such systems have typically had no ability to span hospitals with different systems, thereby limiting the pool of peers and the extent of peer review that could be conducted. In contrast, the participating hospitals with DiaShare can monitor the quality of radiology diagnostic reports in real-time – before reports are finalized, and results are provided to the patient.

DiaShare also addresses objectivity deficiencies of legacy QA solutions by matching radiologists of similar specialties while preserving the anonymity of the participants. The solution allows participating physicians to customize their peer review feedback to areas of greatest concern with an automated sampling of exams configurable right down to the exam type per user. “The pilot that we’ve undertaken with RealTime Medical is a real game-changer around the quality and safety agenda. It’s a solution which is integrated, prospective and workflow-driven. Our experience with other systems we’ve used in the past is that they are static and retrospective,” states David Wormald, Integrated Assistant VP for Diagnostic Services at HHS and SJHH.

Ian Maynard, CEO and Co-Founder of RealTime Medical, states: “this is the first successful cross-system, prospective peer review implementation in North America and Europe that we are aware of.”

“Real Time’s DiaShare solution is capable of quickly spanning institutions with different systems,” explains Babette MacRae, Director of Global Projects and Technology for Real Time Medical. While planning for the project was initiated last year, the actual implementation was completed within months. This is a significantly short timeline considering the four hospital sites used two different Radiology Information Systems (RIS’s) and two distinct radiology Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS): two GE PACS, a Meditech RIS, and a McKesson RIS.

David Wormald describes DiaShare as: “a solution which we believe will hold a lot of benefit from a regional perspective across our Local Health Integration Network, but is also scalable… it could be a pan-Canadian solution. “

About Hamilton Health Sciences

HHS is a family of seven unique hospitals, a cancer centre and an urgent care centre, serving more than 2.3 million residents of Hamilton and central west Ontario, Canada. HHS is the second-largest hospital group in Ontario. As an academic teaching hospital with more than 1,100 beds and an affiliation with McMaster University and Mohawk College, HHS is committed to providing exemplary health care while advancing excellence in education and health research. The organization’s exceptional track record of inquiry and innovation has earned Hamilton Health Sciences recognition as one of the world’s leading health science research organizations. www.hamiltonhealthsciences.ca

About St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton

SJHH is an acute care, teaching and research hospital affiliated with the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University and Mohawk College. It consists of three Campuses: the Charlton Campus in downtown Hamilton, the King Campus in the east end of Hamilton, and the West 5th Campus on the West Mountain. For over 121 years, SJHH has cared for the community in a spirit of compassion, innovation, and commitment. www.stjoes.ca.

About RealTime Medical

RealTime Medical is a diagnostic imaging workflow innovation company. It develops vendor-neutral, context-aware workflow management software solutions. These solutions organize the reporting services in complex diagnostic imaging organizations more efficiently and productively. RealTime Medical’s platforms improve the quality and accuracy of service delivery to patients.

RealTime Medical also operates the only nationwide, round-the-clock radiology service in Canada, using its own context-aware workflow management software solutions. www.realtimemedical.com

Contact:

Hamilton Health Sciences

Heather Pullen

Public Relations and Communications

Telephone (905) 521.2100 ext. 75939

pullenh@hhsc.ca

Paging (905) 521-5030

St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton

Lindsay Whelan

Public Affairs Department

Telephone (905) 522.1155 ext. 33156

lwhelan@stjoes.ca

Paging (905) 522-1155 ext. 33311

RealTime Medical

Ian Maynard, P.Eng., M.Sc., MBA

CEO & Co-Founder

software@realtimemedical.com