Hamilton Health Sciences and St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton Collaborate on a Multi-Site, Integrated Radiology and Nuclear Medicine Peer Review Pilot Project

HAMILTON, Ontario, Nov. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The integrated department of diagnostic services at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) and St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton (SJHH) announced today that it is launching a city-wide, integrated Radiology and Nuclear Medicine peer review pilot project.

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The pilot project seeks to implement a quality assurance, improvement and collaboration program for radiology and nuclear medicine/molecular imaging across three of HHS's campuses and at SJHH. The pilot aims to be fully automated, actionable, and well-adopted among participating physicians.

HHS and SJHH are affiliated with McMaster University's Faculty of Health Sciences (McMaster). Together, they serve a population of over 2.3 million across 9 campuses, and have over 60 highly specialized radiologists and nuclear medicine physicians.

HHS and SJHH selected to pilot Real Time Medical's context-aware peer review software platform, DiaShare™ QUALITY, in support of pilot project objectives.

Dr. Naveen Parasu, Staff Radiologist and Departmental Quality Assurance Coordinator at the Juravinski Hospital and Cancer Centre, and Associate Professor at McMaster, said: "We were looking for a solution that would automate existing and new QA workflows, and integrate them seamlessly into our regular reporting workflows out of our GE PACS. We also wanted a single view of our QA activities across all of our campuses. Finally, of equal importance were analytics that allow us to take action to meaningfully improve the quality of care we deliver."

"Our ultimate goal is to establish a city-wide Diagnostic Services physician quality assurance program that will contribute to and improve the quality of Hamilton's medical and molecular imaging services. Both organizations have embraced a culture of patient safety and continuous quality improvement; we see this QA pilot as the next step in our quality journey", said David Wormald, Integrated Assistant Vice President Diagnostic Services and Medical Diagnostic Unit.

Ian Maynard, CEO and Co-Founder of Real Time Medical, added, "Our quality assurance, improvement and collaboration platform significantly improves upon traditional approaches to peer review, which are typically punitive, non-anonymized and not integrated into radiologists' normal workflow and diagnostic systems. When done correctly, quality assurance can be made a seamless aspect of normal workflow, to the benefit of the organizations involved, the physicians and the patients they serve. I am confident HHS and SJHH will see tremendous results with our innovative platform in support of their commitment to continuous quality improvement."

About Hamilton Health Sciences

Hamilton Health Sciences is a family of six unique hospitals, a cancer centre and an urgent care centre, serving more than 2.3 million residents of Hamilton and central west Ontario, Canada. Hamilton Health Sciences is the second largest hospital group in Ontario, and serves as a regional referral centre for cardiac, stroke, burns, trauma, neurosurgery, pediatrics, digestive diseases, high-risk obstetrics, cancer, orthopedics and rehabilitation services. With a staff of 11,000, the hospital is the largest employer in the Hamilton region. As an academic teaching hospital with more than 1,100 beds and an affiliation with McMaster University and Mohawk College, Hamilton Health Sciences is committed to providing exemplary health care while advancing excellence in education and health research. The organization's exceptional track record of inquiry and innovation has earned Hamilton Health Sciences recognition as one of the world's leading health science research organizations. www.hamiltonhealthsciences.ca

About St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton

St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton is an acute care, teaching and research hospital affiliated with the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University and Mohawk College. It consists of three Campuses: the Charlton Campus in downtown Hamilton, the King Campus in the east end of Hamilton, and the West 5th Campus on the West Mountain. For over 121 years, SJHH has cared for the community in a spirit of compassion, innovation, and commitment, a drive that has nurtured the growth of the organization into a multi-site, regional, tertiary, academic health science centre. For more information, visit www.stjoes.ca.

About Real Time Medical

Real Time Medical is a diagnostic imaging workflow innovation company. It develops vendor-neutral, context-aware workflow management software solutions. These solutions organize the reporting services in complex diagnostic imaging organizations more efficiently and productively. Real Time Medical's platforms improve the quality and accuracy of service delivery to patients.

Real Time Medical also operates the only nationwide, round-the-clock radiology service in Canada, using its own context-aware workflow management software solutions.

For more information, visit www.realtimemedical.com

Contact:

Hamilton Health Sciences
Heather Pullen
Public Relations and Communications
Telephone (905) 521.2100 ext. 75939
pullenh@hhsc.ca
Paging (905) 521-5030

St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton Lindsay Whelan
Public Affairs Department
Telephone (905) 522.1155 ext. 33156
lwhelan@stjoes.ca
Paging (905) 522-1155 ext. 33311

Real Time Medical
Ian Maynard, P.Eng., M.Sc., MBA
CEO & Co-Founder
(905) 362.0223 ext. 6201
media@realtimemedical.com