IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

The Ford connection to the City of Windsor stretches back more than a century, ever since Henry Ford opened his first Canadian operation in 1904 and started production of the Model C. That cross-border collaboration has never ceased — and now we’re taking that relationship to the next level in an attempt to help reduce car crashes and improve the safety of city streets.

Last October, we officially launched the Safety Insights platform, an innovative software tool that can help governments with their mission to build smarter, safe transportation systems. Now, we’re proud to announce that Windsor has become our first Canadian customer.

Under this initiative, results of any lab test ordered for patients at HSN will be sent to OLIS, the central, secure, storage site for all lab tests performed in the province. Health-care providers linked to OLIS can then access the lab results to better co-ordinate patient care.

The funding will accelerate the use of Electronic Health Records to improve patient care. It will also allow the province to leverage existing systems and investments to promote regional integration. eHealth Ontario wants to build EHRs for all of Ontario by 2015.

The sudden retirement of its only family doctor in June has left the village of Apsley, Ont., searching for a new physician.

For residents of the community north of Peterborough, the nearest doctor is now a 100 to 120-kilometre round trip south to either the village of Lakefield or Peterborough. A challenging commute for many residents including Rachel Thuston, the mother of a two-year-old child.

We urgently need to reduce the size and cost of government.

A good way to do this would be to require public sector unions to compete with private sector unions, not-for-profits and businesses to provide and deliver government services. This process would improve the quality of public services through better hours, more products delivered and more responsive service.

Thankfully relief came just two days later when her family doctor called to tell her the results all came back clear.

“It certainly made my life a lot easier,” said the Hamilton woman.

SPIRE — for Southwest Physician Interface to Regional Electronic Medical Record — allows family doctors' offices to access hospital-generated lab results, diagnostic images and transcribed reports. It means lab tests and hospital information get to the patient's doctor instantaneously instead of taking days.

Politicians got their first look at a plan to harness technology for made-in-London solutions to everyday problems at a committee meeting Monday night.

The goal is a “smart city” that uses data, technology and innovative ideas to improve the lives of Londoners and give the city an edge on a provincial or national stage.

OMA president Dr. Stewart Kennedy says the NDP and the Progressive Conservatives made no mention of eHealth in their party platforms, while the Liberal party has yet to unveil its platform for the Oct. 6 election.

Kennedy said there are six million patients covered by an electronic medical record, which are being managed by 6,000 physicians.

Bell Canada and IBM Canada Ltd. are teaming up with the Toronto-area city of Markham, Ont., to test a new generation of systems for monitoring city infrastructure and detecting problems such as storm flooding.

The six-month research program that starts in April will combine Bell’s broadband networks, IBM data analytics and data from sensors placed in various parts of the city of 355,000 residents, northeast of Toronto.

“This project is really about the communities and about the membership at the community level opening up a new world to the benefits that we take for granted sometimes in the urban areas,” said Jason Rasevych, Matawa’s economic development advisor. “There would be advantages to health services through telemedicine and video counselling. There would be advantages for economic development because we would have employment and training that could be linked to video training and online training tools.”

The municipality will hold an information meeting on shared services on Sept. 26 at 2 p.m. at Woodford Hall.

Meaford Mayor Francis Richardson said the meeting will gather information only, similar to what Grey County did when it brought the county's municipal leaders together to discuss corporate structure.

A pilot program in place at Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene (MHCP) is designed to make patient information more accessible to health-care providers – no matter where they’re located.

Doorways is the name of the partnership between Community Care Information Management, eHealth Ontario and four participating Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) – North Simcoe Muskoka, Champlain, North East and North West.

Mississauga can give itself a pat on the collective back after being named one of the most intelligent cities on Earth.

Each year, the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) recognizes seven cities that are models of economic, social and cultural development in the digital age. Mississauga was one of three Canadian cities to earn recognition, along with Winnipeg and Langley Twp., B.C.

Electronic Medical Record (EMR) is part of Ontario’s eHealth initiative and there is a movement afoot to have all patient records digitized by 2015.

Brant County is about to get a major boost in broadband computer capability with the issuing of a tender on a $279,806 project to install fibre optic cable that will include most of the municipality.

County council's corporate development committee has unanimously endorsed a staff recommendation to issue the contract to Trinity Communication Services Ltd. to install the technology as an extension of the fibre optic network built by Brant County Power Services Inc.

Muskoka’s direct line to health-care specialists just got a boost.

The province announced on July 19 that it is investing $850,000 in telemedicine annually in the North Simcoe Muskoka Local Health Integration Network.

Over the past year, the North East LHIN’s use of Telemedicine has been steadily increasing. The North East is the highest user of the technology among Ontario’s 14 LHINs, embracing it as a way to improve access to care for Northerners.

The centre located at 161 Greenbank Rd. and is the operated by Sykes Assistance Services Corporation, which has a contract with the Ontario Ministry of Health. Nurses will provide general health information, help identify symptoms and connect callers to local health care services.

"We chose Ottawa for this latest call centre because we wanted to bolster our complement of bilingual nurses," said Sykes spokesperson Adam Jones in a statement.

New technology that notifies the North East CCAC when a patient is admitted to hospital and notifies hospitals that a patient is receiving home care services is smoothing patient transitions and enhancing quality patient care.

Funded by eHealth Ontario, the new e-Notification initiative began rolling out across the northeast on January 29th. As of March 31st, the North East CCAC and 24 Northeastern Ontario Network (NEON) hospitals have been ‘turned on’ to this information-sharing project.