Update from AFHTO-PSS working group: report from meeting with TELUS-HEALTH

The AFHTO – PSS working group continues to meet with the PS Suite team from TELUS-Health to address the FHTs issues with the EMR. Recently, representatives from the working group met with the leadership team at TELUS Health to ensure that the FHT priorities and concerns were being heard by TELUS and would be addressed. Background: The AFHTO- PSS working group has been meeting since February 2012 (click here for the last update). Working within the priorities identified by the FHTs in the June 2012 AFHTO survey, the working group developed a list of actionable items in collaboration with the TELUS PSS team.  These priority actionable items were presented to the TELUS team during the summer. Over this period most of the responses from the TELUS team had not provided as much clarification as expected by the AFHTO working group.  To address some our concerns, representatives from the AFHTO working group met with the TELUS-Health leadership on September 23. Update from the meeting with TELUS Health Leadership Team:

• TELUS Health Leadership heard and acknowledged the concerns expressed around communications and the non-committal answers to the actionable items. A candid and positive discussion took place with all present at the meeting.
• TELUS Health stated that they:
  • Remain committed to PS Suite and the FHT users.
  • Plan to invest in PS Suite along with the two other EMR platforms that it supports.
  • Do not expect users to change their EMRs and users can expect improvements to the functionality over time.
• TELUS Health Leadership and AFTHO agreed on the following next steps:
  • TELUS PS Suite clarified that the responses to the priority action items were “initial” and that there would be updates. TELUS PS Suite will review each item with their team and provide more specific responses prior to the AFHTO conference. AFHTO requested, where possible, to be provided a point person for items and an indication when there would be a status update.
  • TELUS team will work closely with the AFHTO working group on communication to FHT users.  TELUS is committed to improve communication with FHT users.
  • AFHTO and TELUS will establish regular leadership meetings to ensure accountability for the agreed processes and outcomes.

Present at the TELUS-AFHTO meeting: Ron Sparks, Head of Sales, TELUS Physician;  Shawn Vincent, Director, R&D; Charles Funk, Manager, Product Management;  Ken Piaggio, Director, Client Services; Shannon Jackson, Manager, Health business consulting; Manon Greer, Senior Product manager; Jeremy Gordon, Client Services manager; and  Fok-Jee Leung (Bruyere FHT); Kevin Samson (East Wellington FHT); Tim Burns (AFHTO); Clarys Tirel (AFHTO). PS Suite User Session at AFHTO conference: About 200 people have registered for the PS Suite User session. The AFHTO PSS user group will give an update on the work that they have completed and on the responses from TELUS Health to our priority action items. TELUS Health Leaders will be at the session and will outline the next steps in our collaboration to ensure that FHT PS Suite users’ needs are heard and, where possible, met. Please send an email to Clarys Tirel (clarys.tirel@afhto.ca) with any specific questions that you want answered at the session.  We will make time for questions, but given that the tight timeframe, we want to plan ahead as much as possible.