Village Gamer

Nightingale Informatix Corporation, an application service provider (ASP) of electronic medical record (EMR) software and related services, today announced that it has signed a $2.15 million services contract with the Association of Ontario Health Centres (AOHC) to i) migrate data from their member centres’ existing EMR databases to Nightingale’s EMR platform and ii) create virtualized local environments for each of the members’ existing databases so the original client data will be accessible for reference purposes as needed. This services agreement follows the EMR software deployment contract awarded to Nightingale in December 2011 by the AOHC for the benefit of its member centres.

The data migration and data retention services will be performed by Nightingale and its partner, Interware Systems Inc. (Interware), who will assist Nightingale in providing portions of the data extraction and data retention services under this agreement.

“We are excited that Nightingale and our partner Interware have surpassed the stringent requirements set out by the AOHC data migration and retention selection committee,” said John Bodolai, Executive Vice President, Nightingale Informatix Corporation.  “While Nightingale continues to lead the market with an innovative EMR offering, this contract validates how Nightingale leads the market in helping healthcare providers migrate away from legacy EMR systems using our Nightingale Data Management Centre of Excellence.  We believe the Data Management Centre of Excellence will allow health centres and health care providers the freedom to choose the best EMR in the market while preserving the value of their past investment.”

Nightingale recently established a Data Management Centre of Excellence (DMCE) which includes a set of processes, tools and resources designed to help health care organizations extract data from their legacy EMR applications and populate the data into Nightingale on Demand EMR in a useful format.  To move to the next level of EMR adoption, there is a need to support organizations in migrating from existing Information Management solutions to Nightingale On Demand.  Migrating data is complicated and time consuming, and the tools that Nightingale has built will add the right amount of rigour to ensure that this data is of the highest quality and will be readily available and useable in the Nightingale On Demand EMR solution.  Ultimately, customers need to have confidence in their client’s data to ensure that they are providing the highest quality of care, and with the establishment of this DMCE, they will have that peace of mind.

“Our top priority is to ensure the integrity of data quality during and after data migration, and to minimize the impact this process may have on our member centres,” said AOHC’s Chief Information Officer Mr. Rodney Burns. “We believe Nightingale shares our concerns and will do its best to accommodate our needs.”

Nightingale will use the DMCE to complete the data migration and retention services over the next two years in tandem with the roll-out of Nightingale On Demand EMR, to approximately 3,500 health care providers across 83 Community Health Centres (CHCs) and Aboriginal Health Access Centres (AHACs). Upon completion of the process, AOHC member centres will have access to client data in their new EMR. They will also have secure, local access to the original data as a back-up to ensure that all AOHC member centres will be able to provide continuity of care. The initial contract is for data migration and retention services for existing AOHC member centres, with an opportunity to increase the scope of the contract should the AOHC add member centres during the two-year term of the agreement.

“We recognize how essential it is for healthcare practitioners to be able to seamlessly transition from a legacy EMR to our platform,” Mr. Bodolai added. “We are a true end-to-end partner to our customers, working with them every step of the way through the EMR implementation process.”

The data migration and retention services agreement is an important component in the Nightingale on Demand roll-out across all AOHC member organizations. The AOHC’s decision to deploy Nightingale’s cloud-based EMR for all its members and its scheduled member centres is a significant deliverable in the Ontario government’s eHealth agenda, as it helps move the province closer to its goal of an electronic health record for all Ontarians.