Monday, August 6 2007
Welcome to new part of our web page. We thought that since we seem to get involved in lots of conversations about new developments in our game, we should pass them along to you. Some things won't be new; others might be.
For those who don't know us, Medinet has been around since 1989, when we were asked to figure out a way to send lab reports electronically from BC Biomedical Laboratories. We set up a pilot project, got tee shirts and some third-party software, used the very early email network created by the long distance phone carriers, and started in business. We soon added the BC Centre for Disease Control and what became MDS Metro. In fact, Don Rix, recently appointed to the Order of Canada for his innovative spirit, was one of our earliest supporters. Anyway, we added service for most of the major hospitals in the province, and found ourselves with a workable business.
Things got a bit tight in the late nineties, when our two private for-profit lab clients decided to start up in competition with us. We were left with what are now the health authority hospitals across the province, and that has proved to be an interesting and rewarding group of clients. So, we carry data for Vancouver, Lions Gate and St Paul's hospitals in VCHA; Royal Jubilee, Victoria and Saanich hospitals in VIHA; and Royal Columbian, Eagle Ridge, Ridge Meadows and Burnaby hospitals in Fraser Health. As well, we still have our first major lab, BC Centre for Disease Control, along with Women's and Children's Hospital in PHSA.
We carry about 2.5 million lab reports annually for these sites, to around 7,000 users in 2,000 offices and clinics. Our clients are scattered across the province, from Victoria to Ft St John, from Haida Gwai to Cranbrook.
The late nineties also brought us the longest running pilot project in history, with the advent of physician access to Pharmanet. The pilot ran over five years, before it finally was approved for use in doctors' officers around British Columbia. We had the major portion of the 100 pilot sites, and we have ended up being the main provider of Pharmanet access to physicians and hospitals. The service comes in several flavours depending on who you are and where you work. We are finally certified for all possible options, we think, until the ministry changes things.
In the meantime, we can offer Pharmanet access to the physician office (Medical Practice), to emergency (Emergency Department), to general locations inside hospitals (Hospital Access) and to hospital pharmacies (Hospital Pharmacy Access). Needless to say, the paperwork requirements are considerable, but we've got it figured out now and can get you going fairly quickly.
Like most people in our field, we're looking ahead to the new environment -- the result of the feds spending $1.7 billion on health information technologies. It would be nice to imagine that some of that might trickle down to us, but for the moment, it's business as usual. We'll have more to say about all this in coming weeks.
jrc
