
eHealth Saskatchewan plays a vital role in providing IT services to patients, health care providers, and partners such as the Ministry of Health and the Saskatchewan Health Authority in Canada.
eHealth employs a provincially managed, locally delivered approach to setting up a single provincial IT service that supports the delivery of health care throughout the province.
As the organization’s mission is to "collaborate to transform health care through the use of information and innovative technology," eHealth puts electronic health information into the hands of patients and their health care teams across Saskatchewan.
Meeting the Technical and Geographic Challenges
For more than 17 years, eHealth Saskatchewan has been using a picture archiving and communication system (PACS) from Philips Healthcare Informatics to deliver quality radiology services across a very large geographic region. Prior to the implementation of the Philips PACS1 in 2007, Saskatchewan used an analog system with films.
With small towns spread out over a very large area and a shortage of qualified personnel, “You can’t have a radiologist everywhere, so a centralized PACS is more practical,” said Paul Sloman, eHealth Saskatchewan’s manager of medical imaging services. That is why eHealth relies on the Philips PACS to provide fast, accurate data to everyone throughout the network “to do the most with the technology.”
Philips PACS Managed Service Model has allowed eHealth to deploy a single database that provides a unified longitudinal record across the province, resulting in growth from 600,000 exams per year to 1.3 million2.
This fully managed service contract provides services to approximately 70 health care facilities and 1.2 million people in Saskatchewan. Philips Managed Service has also helped Saskatchewan grow effortlessly, adding hospitals and community clinics as they are needed. Currently, eHealth supports almost 300 Philips Radiology PACS workstations that are being used for interpretation/dictation.
The managed service model offers a predictable total cost of ownership and easy management compared to a traditional capital purchase model.
“Philips is a reliable partner, proactively managing our IT infrastructure and providing timely services to ensure the technology is working the way it needs to, supporting providers and patients,” Sloman said.
Philips provides 24/7/365 support and a dedicated Canadian deployment team to help eHealth manage its PACS solution. As part of the managed service, Philips provides all of the hardware and software, and maintenance is provided in accordance with the terms of the contract.
According to Sloman, the Philips PACS “allows us to function as a health care system. It impacts every patient’s journey and contributes to saving lives when instant access to information matters most.”
The Benefits of a Managed Service Model
Using a Managed Service model is much more proactive and collaborative than the traditional approach, as it guarantees performance, uptime, and data backup. Philips takes the responsibility of managing eHealth’s health care informatics system to help them achieve their enterprise goals.
Among the other benefits the Managed Service model provides are:
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Philips owns the server-side software and hardware, which protects against obsolescence. Storage and software upgrades are included.
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Operational expenses are predictable with a Per Study monthly fee. This includes unlimited licenses such as diagnostic licenses, enterprise licenses and modality connections.
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There are no separate maintenance fees for monitoring and tech support.
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Includes a performance guarantee of 3 seconds for image delivery and 99.99 percent monthly uptime.
Philips Managed Service model also provides eHealth Saskatchewan with peace of mind with its business continuity and disaster recovery services.
The Philips PACS allows eHealth to publish studies to a central provincial vendor neutral archive (VNA) to create a comprehensive imaging view of the patient. The PACS provides VNA storage, radiology interpretation and enterprise viewing with a unified longitudinal patient record and fast, efficient image delivery.
The managed service program also makes upgrades and expansions straightforward for the eHealth team. Over the years, eHealth Saskatchewan has implemented new services, most recently deploying advanced mammography reading and reporting on the Philips PACS. This has eliminated the need for standalone reading workstations.
Sloman said the need for mammography was expressed by eHealth’s partners, the Saskatchewan Health Authority and the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency. “They had a need for it, and we had the functionality available to us to be built into our existing solution.” He added that its testing and implementation went smoothly, and it is doing what the partners needed and wanted it to do.
Sloman said the organizations have grown up together when it comes to system upgrades. There are always idiosyncrasies that can occur when new systems are installed or upgrades are required — for a wide variety of reasons. That is why Sloman said communication is key so that both parties know what is going on and what is required during a system upgrade.
“We work collaboratively with Philips to try and make sure as many potential challenges as possible are addressed ahead of time.”
A Partnership
The relationship between eHealth Saskatchewan and Philips has continued to grow since 2007, and continues to grow stronger each year.
“Our relationship with Philips has always been very good and they have been very supportive of us. We feel that we are valued as a customer and a partner and that really makes a difference!” Sloman said.
Learn More
To learn more about eHealth Saskatchewan, please visit www.ehealthsask.ca/.
Additional information on Philips Healthcare Informatics in Canada is available at www.philips.ca/healthcare/solutions/clinical-informatics
1 Philips PACS refers to a Product: “IntelliSpace Radiology”.
2 Results from case studies are not predictive of results in other cases. Results in other cases may vary.