This Request for Information (“RFI”) is issued by St. Joseph’s Care Group (SJCG) for the purpose of gathering information about the marketplace in order to assist in the determination of future procurement options or requirements. Respondents are asked to respond to SJCG and provide the information requested in Section 3.0 of this document.
SJCG is interested in identifying and understanding the extent/availability of Data Migration, Archiving and Downtime solution specific to the healthcare sector as further described in Section 3.0 of this document.
In addition to data migration and archiving tools, a downtime solution is required to manage and minimize the impact of both planned and unplanned system and network outages ensuring continuity and operational efficiency in care delivery. Providing near real-time access to critical clinical data with view-only functionality, maintaining admissions, transfers, and discharges integrity, and redundant access through standalone PCs is also needed during complete network outages.
Background Information
There are over 100 organizations providing health care services in Northwestern Ontario, including 12 hospital organizations that provide a broad spectrum of services in urban, rural and remote communities. The organizations are spread geographically throughout Northwestern Ontario. This geographical region is bounded by the Manitoba border in the west and Manitouwadge on the east; a geography the size of France and geographically half of the Province of Ontario.
The health and care partners include tertiary and secondary acute care, rehabilitation care, primary care, mental health, general practitioners, social care, pharmacies, community care, long term care, assisted housing and carer, and many other community care organizations. Each organization provides a varying and wide range of health and care services. The majority of specialised care is provided through Thunder Bay.
Within Northwestern Ontario there are four Ontario Health Teams - All Nations Health Partners (Kenora area), Rainy River District (Fort Frances area), Kiiwetinoong Healing Waters (Red Lake, Sioux Lookout, Dryden area) and Noojmawing Sookatagaing (Thunder Bay and east area). The Ontario Health Teams represent a collection of local health and care partners working together to provide health and care services in their locality in collaboration with Northwestern Ontario regional initiatives and specialised services, including digital health.
There are two applied health research institutes - Thunder Bay Regional Health Research Institute and the St Joseph’s Care Group Centre for Applied Health Research. The Northern Ontario School of Medicine operates in the region, as well as, Lakehead University and Confederation College.
The organizations have a varying range of information technology - custom, individual and shared and varying IT support and support models. In terms of shared information systems, all hospitals currently use the Meditech Hospital Information System (HIS) hosted by Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC) and all but one use a shared PACS also hosted by TBRHSC. Many other health organizations utilize some of the shared information technology, including federally-funded facilities.
Northwestern Ontario has established a forward-thinking Digital Health Vision. The Vision is
“…to be a leading health system - enabled by innovative digital transformation- where partners work together to achieve the best outcomes and care experience for the people of Northwestern Ontario”.
At the centre of our Vision is a person, patient, client. Each person will be surrounded by a person-centric record, where clinicians work seamlessly in a single record, regardless of where they work or how they are funded. Many other tools will both link into and leverage the health record. As technology changes and we continue to innovate, our Vision provides for those tools also to link into our record.
The Roadmap to realise the Vision is mapped in three phases:
· Phase 1 - Transforming care innovatively…with the North Western Ontario Health Record (NWOHR)
· Phase 2 - Transforming care innovatively…through advanced analytics & research
· Phase 3 - Transforming care innovatively…with new digital health.
To expedite the journey, reduce risk and minimize costs, The North Western Ontario shared service is planning to join in partnership with the North Eastern Ontario shared service for Meditech; ONE Health Information Technology Services. The ONE Health Information Technology Services host Meditech Expanse.
All 12 hospital organizations currently use the same version of Meditech Client/Server (5.67 PP 41) hosted by Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC). The extent of data migration is currently under review and being scoped. In addition to Meditech Client/Server the potential migration scope to Meditech Expanse includes other systems such as MYLE by MEDFAR Clinical Solutions for Maternity/Obstetrics, Med e-care for long term care units attached to five (5) of the hospital organizations, as well as Telus PS Suite for Primary Care.
