First hospitals and long-term care sites live on MEDITECH's Traverse Exchange Canada

MEDITECH’s first-of-its-kind interoperability solution, Traverse Exchange Canada, went live in February, enabling the free flow of patient health information across participating platforms, care settings, and other vendor systems. The initial waves of organizations connected on the cloud-based network include four Ontario hospitals using MEDITECH and 65 long-term care sites using the PointClickCare^Ⓡ EHR.

Traverse Exchange Canada provides clinicians with a holistic view of their patients by enabling health data to flow between multiple participating organizations using MEDITECH’s EHR and other EHRs that comply with interoperability standards. This single connection eliminates the need for providers to sign on and search for information in each provincial asset or launch various data viewing tools, saving valuable time. With MEDITECH Expanse, the patient's health information is seamlessly presented in a user’s native workflow.

“The groundbreaking network is a significant step in advancing interoperability between healthcare providers in Canada,” said MEDITECH Director Canadian Market and Product Strategy Bob Molloy. “Now clinicians can easily access important patient health information from multiple organizations with one connection. Data flows directly into clinical workflows at the point of care, regardless of the setting, and provides a more complete patient picture that contributes to safer care.”

The first hospitals that are live on Traverse Exchange Canada include Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences, The Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre, and Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care. The phased rollout will bring several additional Ontario hospitals and long-term care facilities live on the data-sharing network by the end of March.

“This is a significant achievement and collaboration to leverage technology and the EMR to improve communications and patient experience in Ontario,” said Gokulan Kandasamy, Director, MH-HIS Cluster. “We are very excited that the MH-HIS Cluster is one of the first in Ontario to securely exchange data through Traverse Exchange Canada. We look forward to the further expansion of this network as additional information is exchanged and more hospital partners join the network.“

Patients' data will now follow them between care facilities, eliminating the need to repeat their medical history or remember medication names. Traverse Exchange Canada automatically presents an external patient summary record in the MEDITECH EHR, saving time and reducing unnecessary duplication of tests.

The MEDITECH Traverse Exchange Canada platform is being implemented as part of the Project AMPLIFI portfolio, a province-wide clinical data integration initiative. The Traverse Exchange Canada platform is helping to support bi-directional information exchange between hospital and hospital and hospital and long-term care homes.

MEDITECH developed Traverse Exchange Canada in partnership with the MEDITECH Collaborative, an Ontario Health supported entity with a mandate to align and standardize implementations across Ontario. MEDITECH plans to expand the network to other provinces throughout Canada as well as connect with other vendors’ EHRs, HIS systems, and provincial assets.

To protect the privacy and security of patient information, Traverse Exchange Canada does not store patient data but instead uses a federated, query-based approach to locate and parse discrete patient data across the network.

"True collaboration between organizations enabled us to achieve this new level of healthcare interoperability and this is just the beginning," Molloy said. "We are excited to see the positive impact this new level of data sharing is already having on these healthcare organizations and look forward to extending its reach throughout Canada.”

HIMSS24 attendees can learn more about the Traverse Exchange Canada solution at Achieving a Collaborative Approach to Meaningful Interoperability Across Canada on Wednesday, March 13, at 2:30 PM in room W330A.