TELUS signs agreements with KinLogix Medical (QC), Healthscreen Solutions (ON) and Wolf Medical Systems (AB, BC) to launch consumer health pilots targeting six million Canadians

TELUS today announced another significant milestone in its commitment to help revolutionize healthcare. Agreements have been signed with three of Canada’s leading electronic medical record (EMR) providers to connect their solutions to the TELUS health space platform. With the integration of EMRs, patients and service providers will be able to securely access and share health information electronically transferred from their medical file over any Internet connection from any location and at any time. Consumer pilots will begin in Quebec with KinLogix this quarter and roll-out across Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia starting in the second quarter. 

TELUS health space, powered by Microsoft HealthVault, is a secure and confidential online consumer platform and the first of its kind in Canada. TELUS health space will provide Canadians with one of the most fundamentally important pieces of the healthcare puzzle – access and management of their own health information.

“With 61 per cent of consumers asking for their physician, hospital or the government to provide them with a personal heath record (PHR) or online medical record, our partnerships with KinLogix, Healthscreen and Wolf will help to answer this need,” said Paul Lepage, senior vice president, TELUS Health Solutions. “Through TELUS health space, we are empowering Canadians with an electronic health platform that will improve health outcomes for themselves and their families. Our goal is to help put the patient first, improve the flow of information across the continuum of care and shift the focus from the remediation to the prevention of disease.”

TELUS health space will give Canadians the ability to create, store and manage their family’s health information in a safe environment utilizing the latest in encryption and protection technology. This includes moving personal health information quickly and securely across the healthcare continuum whether they are at home, in a clinic, at a hospital or wherever consumers’ lifestyles or business travels take them.

Health consumers want trustworthy and reliable data fed into their PHRs. With EMR functionality, information may be entered into the TELUS health space account in two ways: 

• the physician updates the PHR and the data flows automatically into the patient’s profile;
• patients automatically transfer readings from medical devices such as blood pressure, glucose monitors, pedometers and more directly to their PHR.

KinLogix Medical is Quebec’s foremost developer and provider of medical data information systems.  With clinics throughout the province, KinLogix has over 1,500 physicians and a patient base of two million. In Ontario, Healthscreen Solutions provides software and services to 5,500 doctors with 1,500 of them also using the company’s EMR solution. These physicians have an average of 1,500 patients in their care. The west coast’s premier EMR vendor, Wolf Medical Systems, enables 800 physicians in Alberta and 500 in British Columbia to manage medical records for over 2 million patients and has launched a patient portal application that will also be connected to TELUS health space.