May 27, 2008 10:00 ET
IBM Canada Subsidiary Opens International Centre of Excellence to Support Information Exchange Between Health Systems
QUEBEC CITY, QUEBEC--(Marketwire - May 27, 2008) - Today, IBM (NYSE:IBM) announced it has created a Centre of Excellence in Quebec City to deliver a solution to facilitate the sharing of critical medical documents between physicians, clinics and hospitals around the world. Artefact Informatique, a division of LGS Group Inc., an IBM company, will be the exclusive global provider of the solution.
The solution acts as a registry and repository for a wide range of diverse documents including lab reports, digital images, and drug profiles. Authorized healthcare professionals can search, retrieve and view documents from their own jurisdictions or other jurisdictions - regardless of where or how originals are stored. It was developed to be easily integrated with Electronic Health Record solutions because it is based on open industry standards such as DICOM, HL7, and XDS.
"The ability to access health information dispersed among diverse organizations is one of the main IT challenges facing today's healthcare providers. Standards-based solutions are a crucial factor in answering this challenge," said Barry Burk, vice-president, Healthcare Industry, IBM Canada. "Artefact's and IBM's expertise in healthcare and experience in globally integrating enterprises will together advance the ability of healthcare enterprises around the world to share critical medical information and improve patient care."
IBM's solution conforms with the Cross-enterprise Document Sharing (XDS) Integration Profile as defined by Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE), a global initiative by healthcare professionals and industry to improve the way computers share health information.
"It has been shown many times that systems using IHE communicate with one another better, are easier to implement, and enable care providers to use information more effectively. Physicians, medical specialists, nurses, and other care providers have been waiting for the day when vital information can be shared seamlessly regardless of where they are or which system they are using. That day is now," said Jose Mussi, executive director, IHE Canada.
IBM was an early advocate for healthcare industry standards, is actively engaged in IHE Planning and Technical Committees and participates in interoperability events and demonstrations worldwide.
IBM's healthcare strategy is based on the adoption of a service-oriented architecture (SOA) approach and the use of open standards and standards-based electronic health records to provide secure and private exchanges of records between authorized healthcare providers.
More than 30 IBM researchers and software engineers in labs in Haifa, Israel, Rochester, Minnesota and San Jose, California, invested three years developing the SOA solution which is built on IBM WebSphere and DB2 software.
About IBM
For more information about IBM Healthcare, visit www.ibm.com/industries/healthcare.
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Media Contacts:
IBM Canada
Leslie Plant
Media Relations
(416) 478-9840
Email: laplant@ca.ibm.com
or
IBM Canada
Joanne Fortin
Media Relations
(514) 964-8558
Email: fortin@ca.ibm.com
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