Cerner is partnering with the Ottawa Hospital and two other members of the Eastern Ontario Regional Laboratory Association (EORLA) – the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario and the Cornwall Community Hospital – to help implement an enhanced automated lab system that will connect the three laboratories to local hospitals.

The initial phase of the project will see all three hospitals implement the Cerner PathNet Laboratory Information System (LIS). The PathNet solution offers clinicians comprehensive, fully integrated technology to automate the operational and managerial sides of the laboratory and will connect laboratory information with the patient's electronic health record (EHR).

"We have partnered with Cerner for more than 25 years to provide high quality, patient-focused healthcare services to the residents of Ottawa and the surrounding region," said Dale Potter, senior vice president and CIO of the Ottawa Hospital. "Our continued cooperation will advance our use of healthcare information technology while creating a more connected healthcare community, which will improve the coordination of care and integrate our health system to support and facilitate secure information sharing."

The Ottawa Hospital will use the unified Cerner Millennium technology to advance the digitization of individual EHRs and to meet the needs of care providers, laboratory professionals and healthcare consumers. All three hospitals' labs will utilize the PathNet solution, part of the Cerner Millennium portfolio of healthcare solutions, to create an LIS, which will increase efficiency and improve access to laboratory information.

"The collaboration with Cerner and our members will not only automate laboratory processes for the labs involved, but will also facilitate EORLA creating a truly integrated regional laboratory service model, which will deliver patient-focused, high-quality and cost-effective laboratory services to meet the needs of the region," said  Fred B Swaine, CEO of EORLA.

Cerner solutions will be used to automate clinical, financial and managerial processes in the laboratory, including those in hematology, coagulation, chemistry, urinalysis, immunology and phlebotomy. In addition to the PathNet General Laboratory, Microbiology and Transfusion Medicine solutions, Cerner's molecular diagnostics solution, PathNet Helix, will also be implemented to incorporate automation of genetic lab testing.

The Cerner Bridge Medical solution for transfusion management will also be deployed as part of the project to streamline caregiver workflow and increase productivity. The Ottawa Hospital will also use the Cerner CareAware architecture to facilitate connectivity between laboratory medical devices and EHRs.

The automation of laboratory processes will benefit clinicians and EORLA members in several ways, including:

• Timely access to accurate lab results that provide a complete picture of the patient's test results and other vital information for more effective decision making;
• Reduced error through easier verification of key patient demographics, test results and operational quality controls;
• Simplified specimen management with tools to create collection labels and lists containing the information required based on collection parameters;
• Time saving automatic rescheduling of missed collections and the ability to immediately print labels.

"Connecting the laboratory community is an essential step to transforming the way healthcare is delivered in Ottawa and Eastern Ontario," said Jim Shave, president Cerner Canada Ltd. "We have had a long and fruitful relationship with TOH extending back to 1985, and are pleased to see them use our laboratory solutions to provide better integrated care for their patients. These additional solutions will undoubtedly support TOH in their goal to reach the top 10 percent of academic and research hospitals in North America. EORLA and TOH will be able to leverage Cerner's success and proven scalability with regional lab implementations across the country to advance the use of HIT and foster secure information sharing within the regional lab community."