Coral CEA Partners With Mohawk College So Ontario's Software Companies Can Take a Lead Role in $72 Million eHealth Initiative

TORONTO--(Marketwire - Oct 19, 2011) - IT Healthcare Canada Conference & Exhibition - Today Coral CEA and Mohawk College's Applied Research Centre have announced a collaboration to create a software ecosystem so Ontario software companies can rapidly develop new healthcare applications that deliver on the promise of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs). The partnership's strategic intent is to create an Ontario-based software ecosystem that can export eHealth expertise and products to global healthcare providers.

Healthcare costs in Ontario now consume more than one half of all tax revenues. Yet patients must still repeat their medical history over and over to different health care providers, creating frustrating and costly inefficiency.

One Coral CEA member company, Cliniconex Inc., has already shown interest in providing applications within the context of the new partnership with Mohawk College. Cliniconex builds software that helps staff in medical offices automate patient notifications, such as appointment reminders. Cliniconex and Mohawk are pursuing development of an "adapter" to handle electronic health information from multiple sources, for example a walk-in medical clinic or a hospital, and have the data accessible throughout the new Ontario eHealth network.

The Mohawk Applied Research Centre has worked on eHealth for five years, building significant knowledge about the key electronic network that will carry medical files. The first $72 million phase of this network will be built to serve the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and will link the medical files of:

• 6.3 million residents of the GTA
• 700 health services providers
• 43 hospitals
• Over 200 senior's residences
• The Ontario Laboratory Information Services
• ER, digital imaging and doctor's reports

The GTA project is one of four such networks that will provide province wide coverage by 2015. This network is known as the Health Informatics Access Layer (HIAL). "Through this HIAL project and EMRs there is a significant opportunity for our member companies to take a lead role in utilizing the HIAL system," says Coral CEA Executive Director Brian Forbes. He adds, "The task at hand is to develop the technologies that can deliver the promise of eHealth for Ontario. And as we prove ourselves in our home market, Ontario software companies can quickly export their solutions around the world."

"Our partnership with Coral CEA will provide a unique innovation opportunity among companies that want to seize the chance to work in the healthcare field," says Duane Bender, Principal Investigator, at the Mohawk Applied Research Centre. The Centre has already worked with dozens of private and public sector partners across Canada to test and prototype eHealth applications to ensure they'll run on the HIAL network.

Coral CEA partners with Ontario software firms and pursues commercialization through Open Innovation -- a business model that combines best practices from both Open Source and commercial development to allow developers to share risk and return on the creation of new software. Once they become members, Ontario software companies can both take advantage of and contribute to Coral CEA technology to accelerate development and market entry. Coral CEA is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation with $9.3 million dollars over five years. The private sector also provides in-kind assistance. Coral CEA is currently working with 50 Ontario software companies.

Through its Open Innovation approach, Coral CEA wants to boost the sale of Ontario-made eHealth software products that can be exported around the world in the same way Salesforce.com, Google Inc. and Apple Inc. have created global software ecosystems around their innovations. Global demand exists starting with the United States, the number one market for Ontario software exports. The U.S. healthcare system costs twice as much as any other nation based on percentage of GDP spent on healthcare, yet a Commonwealth Fund report from June of 2010 states the U.S. system delivers lower quality and lower efficiencies. Warren Buffett, the legendary U.S. business investor says the high cost of healthcare puts the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage.

Canada's healthcare situation is also ripe for innovation. In June of this year Health Canada provided an update on Canada's healthcare system. Canadians now spend nearly $200 billion dollars annually for healthcare. Ontario and Quebec already spend over half of provincial revenues on health care, and four more provinces -- Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and New Brunswick -- will reach that mark by 2017. A Fraser Institute report of April 2011 calls health care funding, "a genuine financial crisis".

Coral CEA and Mohawk College are exhibiting together at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society annual Healthcare IT conference and exhibition in Toronto running today and Thursday Oct. 20 at the International Centre.

About Coral CEA

Coral CEA is a not-for-profit Open Innovation network composed of member companies and organizations focused on the commercialization of Communications Enabled Applications (CEAs). Coral CEA was founded by the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation (MRI), Carleton University, IBM, GENBAND, Eclipse Foundation and ITAC. The mandate is to create sustainable companies and jobs by supporting members in the commercialization process of new products and services. This includes business development, distribution and brokering of alliance and capital relationships.

About Mohawk Applied Research Centre (MARC)

MARC is a leader in the application of information technology to healthcare and currently developing eHealth infrastructure and integration solutions. Through a partnership with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Canada Health Infoway, MARC staff is building a prototype of pan-Canadian Electronic Health Record System (EHRS). The Centre's work is reflective of top-tier software engineering, and the techniques developed are readily transferrable to other parts of Canada and the world.