TELUS Health Solutions

About the Vendor

TELUS Health is a leader in telehomecare, electronic medical and health records, consumer health, benefits management and pharmacy management. TELUS Health solutions give health authorities, providers, physicians, patients and consumers the power to turn information into better health outcomes. For more information about TELUS Health, please visit telushealth.com

Website URL

https://www.telushealth.co/health-solutions/electronic-medical-records/products/ps-suite-emr/

What type of business are you (e.g. public company, sole proprietorship, partnership, etc.)?

Public company.

In what year did you start business in the health information technology industry?

1982 (acquired by Telus Health in 2013)

In what year did you start to sell the current practice management component of your EMR Offering? In what year did you start to sell the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) component of your EMR Offering?

MacMedical software was first introduced in 1982 and the EMR component in 1988.  As the medical industry has evolved, so have our products and services.  Today,  PS Suite® EMR (launched in 2005) is the major  single EMR product in Ontario.  Each new version incorporates the newest technology and highest value for the health care providers and their staff through a comprehensive and easy to use functionality set. 

How many full time equivalent staff do you currently employ?

TELUS worldwide employs more than 45,000 team members. TELUS Health, employs 1700+  team members.

How many physicians/clinics currently use your EMR product (e.g. chartless office or a majority of encounters recorded electronically)? How many in Ontario?

PS Suite® EMR is used by over 7,000 physicians in Canada, with over 6000 of those in Ontario .

Describe training offered to customers who acquire your EMR Offering. Please describe any associated costs.

TELUS Health provides thorough Clinic Needs Assessment followed by system training, complete with relevant learning material.  Training is customized to role-specific clinical workflow processes.  Training fees are $150 per hour and reimbursement of travel and out of pocket expenses for the trainers.

Will you offer other (non-EMR application) training to your customers? Please describe any associated costs.

Basic system operations, billing, appointments, multiple special clinical workflows, use of printers, backup devices and OCR software for scanners form part of the standard offering. Additional training on a third party application (e.g. Microsoft Office) or special custom workflows or custom form design training is also offered and billable at the standard hourly rate.

How many hours of physician training do you recommend?

Hours of training may vary with previous EMR experience and level of end user proficiency.  Full system (core) training time for a physician and allied health professional averages 18 hours.  Additional intermediate or advanced training in specific areas of the product are quoted and delivered separately.

How many hours of support staff training do you recommend?

Varies on the duties and responsibilities of the staff member; an administrator and a nurse required to know all clinical aspects require approximately 18 hours (core training).  Staff member responsible for billing, scheduling and basic knowledge of the EMR would require less than 10 hours.  

Are there additional fees for training for software upgrades (if so, please describe)?

An additional charge does apply in the event an on-site visit is required for supplementary training, to configure hardware, to integrate third party software or an interface.  In the majority of cases, the product documentation and release notes contain adequate information to take the place of on-site training. Clinics ready to implement other features or functionality into workflow can retain TELUS Health for professional services to support EMR adoption.

Describe the EMR support offered to customers who acquire your Offering. Please describe any associated costs.

Product support is included in support and maintenance fees. Training and implementation may be at an additional cost and are quoted in advance.

Do you provide remote support to your customers? Please describe any associated costs.

Remote support is available and included in the standard contract agreement.  Associated fees are incurred when support is requested for third party hardware or software unrelated to the PS Suite solution or non-standard configurations.

Do you take support requests via email? Please describe any associated costs.

E-mail support requests are included at no extra cost.

In the event of a disagreement between you and your customer, will you support the notion of a dispute resolution process involving an independent mediator? Please describe any associated costs.

TELUS Health Customer Experience staff  proactively monitors incidents to ensure compliance with established service levels.  A tiered escalation path also exists within TELUS Health Customer Experience team to ensure issues affecting our customers are resolved within a timely manner. Additionally, TELUS Heath has an established Escalation Process that can be leveraged in the event issues are not resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.  If needed, the use of an independent mediator would be considered.  Costs associated with obtaining the services of an independent mediator may be passed along to our customers depending on outcome.

Do you have a formal process for managing customer-reported incidents? If so, what is the average age of incidents on your problem log before they are closed? Please describe any associated costs.

TELUS Health subscribes to ITIL best practices and leverages a tracking system designed for client service and support.  The system allows for numerous search criteria to allow support staff to search for previously related issues, resolutions as well as track to ensure that reported issues are not missed.  Relevant service desk metrics (e.g. average age of incidents, resolution rates) are filed with OntarioMD on a quarterly basis.

How often do you make a major software upgrade to your product?

PS Suite® EMR is released on an agile frequent-small release methodology. The target cadence is to have one release per month, with limited new content (one functional area enhancement or new feature per release plus several defect fixes. Every 4 months we consider a new release cycle, so that added, the monthly release is minor, and every forth months the change of numbering makes a medium level release. 

Are there additional fees for major software upgrades (if so, please describe)?

Once a module or feature set is purchased, updates are provided as part of the routine maintenance.  If the product is extended to include a new module or interface there may be charges (e.g. a physician decides to connect to a lab when configuring  that facility was not initially purchased, or a new additional module that is not part of the core EMR).  We make every attempt to have our solution operate on many different classes of computer hardware, however customers may be required to update their computer systems if they wish to take advantage of the latest features.

Are there additional fees for routine maintenance/small changes (if so, please describe)?

No. 

Are there additional fees for documentation for software upgrades (if so, please describe)?

No. 

How do you provide software updates to clients?

PS Suite® EMR software updates are provided over the Internet; a proactive server management tool allows TELUS health to schedule and automate the updates to happen overnight on during weekends at specific maintenance windows agreed upon with the clinic. Alternative arrangements may be made for customers with special configurations behind firewalls or in other secure datacenters that do not allow for automated updates. 

Will you assist physicians in preparing a disaster recovery plan, in the event of the loss of the system? Please describe any associated costs.

We guide our users at installation time on basic daily and weekly backup policies as well as other common IT practices. We recommend the use of UPS, dual power supplies, and even dual internet providers to minimized disruption. We also recommend the use of RAID in their servers and to maintain off-site backup copies. Beyond that other IT practice recommendations can be provided as standard costs via TELUS services or via third party partners. 

Will you assist physicians in preparing a business continuity plan, in the event of a system disruption? Please describe any associated costs.

We guide our users at installation time on basic daily and weekly backup policies as well as other common IT practices. We recommend the use of UPS, dual power supplies, and even dual internet providers to minimized disruption. We also recommend the use of RAID in their servers and to maintain off-site backup copies. Beyond that other IT practice recommendations can be provided as standard costs via TELUS services or via third party partners.

Will you offer customers any assurance or commitment to continuity of business in the event of a system disruption? Please describe any associated costs.

We guide our users at installation time on basic daily and weekly backup policies as well as other common IT practices. We recommend the use of UPS, dual power supplies, and even dual internet providers to minimized disruption. We also recommend the use of RAID in their servers and to maintain off-site backup copies. Beyond that other IT practice recommendations can be provided as standard costs via TELUS services or via third party partners. 

Will you offer data conversion services to customers who already have patient demographic data stored electronically? Please describe any associated costs.

TELUS Health  can offer demographic data conversion from other products.  Associated costs are based on the format, quality and quantity as well as source of data to be converted.  The viability of the conversion is determined during implementation planning. 

Will you offer data conversion services to customers who already have both patient demographic and clinical data stored electronically? Please describe any associated costs.

Given the EMR market consolidation that we have experienced in the last few years, TELUS Health has excelled on data conversion from different vendors. Our clients recognize our data conversion services as the best of the market. TELUS Health offers data conversion from other products which includes demographic data, clinical data (charts, attachments, reports, etc.) as well as appointment and billing data.  Associated costs based on the format, quality and quantity as well as source of data to be converted.  The viability of the conversion is determined during implementation planning.