Infoway negotiates preferred solution agreement with electronic health record (EHR) viewer provider

Toronto, January 11, 2008 - Canada Health Infoway (Infoway) today announced it has negotiated preferential conditions and pricing with Orion Health through a Preferred Solution Agreement for their Concerto^TM Physician Portal, an EHR viewer.

EHR viewers are secure web-based applications that integrate patient information from various sources into a single record, unique to each patient.

"We are making great progress towards the modernization of Canadian patients' health information and that means more and more clinical data is being captured and stored electronically," said Richard Alvarez, President and CEO of Canada Health Infoway, the federally-funded, independent not-for-profit organization which invests with public sector partners to accelerate electronic health records across Canada. "The EHR viewer is a vital tool for clinicians because it is the electronic gateway to the information clinicians rely on to make appropriate care decisions for their patients."

The Canada-wide agreement will help accelerate the implementation of electronic health records, making it simpler for provinces and territories to acquire a health record viewer solution.

An EHR viewer eliminates the need for health care practitioners to learn multiple computer interfaces and improves accuracy by bringing information from across numerous systems into one familiar screen that is customizable for each user's requirement. These systems have many benefits when implemented in a standards-based environment.

Infoway's Preferred Solution Agreements show that participating vendors like Orion have a deep understanding of the pan-Canadian EHR and the need to adopt established standards to ensure interoperability. While Infoway believes that these agreements offer significant value, the selection of specific vendors rests with the individual province or territory.