The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for efficient and effective referral management systems in healthcare. With significant backlogs and long wait times, the importance of improving timely access to healthcare services has never been more important and more urgent. Novari Health is proud to have partnered with the All Nations Health Partners Ontario Health Team (OHT) to integrate the Ocean eReferral Network with Novari eRequest®.
OceanMD’s eReferral Network allows healthcare providers to securely send electronic referrals.
Novari Health’s suite of software solutions include electronic referral management, central intake, and wait list management.
The combined use of the Ocean eReferral Network and Novari’s referral management technologies improves the communication between providers, reduces the use of fax documents, streamlines workflows, enables the benefits of central intake and triage models, and ensures the right patients get to the right providers at the right time with the right clinical information.
The Lake of the Woods District Hospital played a crucial role in this integration, setting an example for other healthcare sites across Canada by embracing the latest integrated technologies available to improve patient access to care.
The integration of Novari Health’s referral management solution with the Ocean eReferral Network has enabled healthcare providers to transmit patient referrals for general surgery, endoscopy, and colonoscopy, seamlessly from their practice management solution (EMR) to Lake of the Woods District Hospital’s central intake system powered by Novari. This integration allows Lake of the Woods District Hospital to leverage Novari’s customizable workflow features to receive, triage, waitlist, and process patient referrals efficiently.
“The All Nations Health Partners Ontario Health Team (OHT) embarked on launching OCEAN eReferral over a year ago, bringing on key receiving sites and onboarding all primary care providers. The OCEAN / NOVARI integration for surgical services at Lake of Woods District Hospital was the next step for seamless referrals across the OHT. This full end-to-end integration with Novari eRequest, Novari ATC, and Ocean eReferral supports equity and timely access to care. This transformational work is a shared vision for an electronic and efficient means to support clinicians from initial referral to specialist consult and, for some patients, surgical waitlisting. This work within the ANHP OHT is a model for other OHTs and setting the example in the Northwest region,” said Cheryl O’Flaherty, CPA CGA, Vice President, Operations & Chief Financial Officer, Lake of the Woods District Hospital and All Nations Health Partners OHT Digital Lead.
The use of the Novari referral management software allows Lake of the Woods District Hospital to accurately track wait times for patient referrals for general surgery, endoscopy, and colonoscopy. With the ability to monitor, compare, and report patient wait times, the hospital is improving patient access to care.
The Lake of the Woods District Hospital’s leadership in adopting new technologies and embracing a philosophy of openness and willingness to integrate played a critical role in the success of this integration.
The Ontario Ministry of Health, Ontario Health, OHTs and hospitals across the province have been working to mitigate the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients waiting for surgery, medical imaging, and many other healthcare services. Having a state-of-the-art wait list management and central intake system complements these efforts for all patients.
Novari Health’s innovative and unique access to care technologies are live and being implemented at hospitals and regional health authorities in Canada and Australia. The Novari access to care platform helps improve access to care, wait times, and drive efficiencies for patients accessing a wide variety of health care services including surgery, mental health & addictions, diabetes, cardiac, medical imaging, etc.
“The team at the All Nations Health Partners OHT, including Lake of the Woods District Hospital, have demonstrably shown the benefits of the integrated use of Ocean eReferral and Novari’s referral management technologies,” said John Sinclair, CPHIMS-CA, President, Novari Health.
About All Nations Health Partners OHT
The All Nations Health Partners (ANHP) include Indigenous, municipal and health care leaders who signed a Resolution in a ceremony in 2017 to work towards developing a seamless, patient-centred health care system. The ANHP aims to provide the right service at the right time and setting for everyone in the Kenora region.
Cultural safety will allow the blending of traditional and mainstream medicines for wholistic healing.
In 2019, the ANHP became one of the first Ontario Health Teams and the first from the North, the smallest, and the only team with full Indigenous and community partners.
Lake of the Woods Hospital is the only acute care hospital with the ANHP OHT catchment area.
About Novari Health
Novari Health designs, builds, and implements award-winning enterprise scale solutions that improve access to care, coordination of care, and the delivery of healthcare services. Headquartered in Canada, with offices in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, Novari is one of the fastest growing digital health solution providers. ISO 27001 certified, Novari Health is a Microsoft Partner, with software solutions hosted on Microsoft Azure’s global network of data centres.
