MEDITECH’s Traverse Exchange Canada supports advanced interoperability

MEDITECH is pleased to introduce Traverse Exchange Canada: a new, first-of-its-kind cloud-based interoperability network that enables the free flow of health information between multiple participating organizations.

Traverse Exchange Canada ensures that relevant information is accessible by MEDITECH’s EHR and other EHRs, to give clinicians a more holistic view of their patients’ care. Powered by Health Gorilla, this progressive solution was developed in partnership with the MEDITECH Collaborative, a grassroots organization with a mandate to advance interoperability and align and standardize implementations across Ontario.

MEDITECH customers in Ontario will be the first jurisdiction eligible to access Traverse Exchange Canada via our subscription model, with other jurisdictions to follow. Once deployed, the solution will automatically present relevant patient information within a care network, without clinicians having to first ask the patient where they received care. Users will not be limited only to hospital data, but will also be presented with patient information from a variety of sources, with the option to consume this data into their local EHR. Patients will also be able to download a comprehensive health summary into their personal apps, such as Apple Health.

“Putting the right information in the hands of the people who need it is what interoperability is all about,” said Humber River Hospital CIO Peter Bak, Ph.D.

“With Traverse Exchange Canada, we will be able to access external records from acute care, primary care, long term care, and other settings to create a more intelligent patient picture that is relevant to the care journey and pertinent to the moment. This kind of intelligent interoperability will improve patient outcomes and lays the foundation for delivering personalized care to our community.”

MEDITECH will expand this solution to include other vendors’ EMRs, HIS systems, long-term care systems, and provincial assets. It will also be ready to connect to Ontario Health’s prospective record locator service and other jurisdictional systems across the country. To avoid privacy and security concerns, patient data is not stored in Traverse Exchange Canada; the solution uses a federated, query-based approach to locate and parse discrete patient data across the network.

“This is an industry leading and disruptive move for MEDITECH,” said Queensway Carleton Hospital Vice President, Mental Health, Diagnostic Services, Chief Information Officer, and Chief Privacy Officer Tim Pemberton. “Traverse Exchange Canada is a visionary solution that will impact not only MEDITECH’s customers but also outside organizations. It represents the company’s continued investment in Canada and commitment to providing innovative technology that promotes superior patient care.”

MEDITECH Executive Vice President and COO Helen Waters agreed that Traverse Exchange Canada would help to break down barriers that too often have prevented a patient’s records from following them wherever they go. “By offering our customers data sharing between systems, we’re breaking down long-standing silos and helping to improve the lives of patients across Canada. That’s what this solution is all about,” she said.