At the Ontario Hospital Association’s HealthAchieve 2011 Conference, McKesson Canada announced the launch of RelayHealth, a new web-based service that provides complete and secure information flow between patients and all of their health care providers from coast to coast. RelayHealth is intended to be made available at no cost to patients and will accelerate information exchange, facilitate collaboration between health care providers, advance patient quality of care, and reduce overall health care costs. It will provide patients with the tools they need to better manage their own health by allowing physicians, health care providers, and patients to share lab and diagnostic test results, make referral requests, book appointments, make prescription and refill requests, and reduce duplicate testing and medical errors. Dale Weil of McKesson Canada says, “The advantage of using this service is that it achieves savings in the shorter term for the health care system and it will help increase patient satisfaction. Also, because RelayHealth is delivered as a service, it accelerates implementation at a lower cost than other major health information technologies and it requires less maintenance. It is a convenient service that provides the same view, same patient information across the entire health network.”
