Ms. Janice Murray reports

TELUS ACQUIRES WOLF MEDICAL SYSTEMS, CANADA'S FASTEST-GROWING CLOUD-BASED EMR (ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORD) PROVIDER

Telus Corp.'s Telus Health Solutions has acquired Wolf Medical Systems. This acquisition will create a new line of business within Telus Health Solutions called Telus Physician Solutions. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Telus has selected Wolf based on its people, technology and a shared vision of how information, communications and technology (ICT) can transform health care for Canadians. Wolf Medical Systems is Canada's largest and fastest growing cloud-based electronic medical record (EMR) provider. Since 2010, over 11 million patient visits have been documented by physicians using Wolf EMR. On a typical day, physicians using the system see more than 26,000 patients, prescribe 23,000 medications and review 166,000 lab results. Now, access to EMRs can be further expanded by combining Wolf's hosted, cloud-based technology with Telus's secure, wireless and wireline broadband communications networks.

The addition of Wolf EMR (for physicians) rounds out Telus's portfolio of world-class health record solutions including Telus health space (for the home and on the go via a smart phone or tablet) and Oacis (for health care institutions). Telus is now uniquely positioned to facilitate the integration of health records from the home, to the doctor's office and to the hospital; ensuring critical health information is available to care providers over secure, wireline and wireless broadband networks wherever and whenever they need it.

"Electronic medical records are an essential building block to an efficient health care system in Canada," explained Paul Lepage, senior vice-president, Telus Health Solutions. "While EMRs have been proven to increase efficiency and performance at both the clinical and regional health care system levels, Canada's EMR penetration rate of about 32 per cent lags behind other OECD countries. By committing to the EMR market with a best-in-class solution, combined with the connectivity that our wireless and wireline broadband networks enable, we are positioned to help increase this adoption rate which will in turn improve work processes, efficiencies in service delivery, and patient health outcomes."

The new Telus Physician Solutions organization will be led by Dr. Brendan Byrne, a practising physician and founder of Wolf Medical Systems. Dr. Byrne's team of more than 75 EMR professionals, paired with the depth and resources of Telus, will allow for the rapid expansion of capabilities uniquely directed at the physician market.

"Joining the Telus team is a tremendous opportunity for Wolf Medical Systems to fully realize our vision to be trusted by physicians to turn information into outcomes," said Dr. Brendan Byrne, vice-president, Telus Physician Solutions. "Telus and Wolf are already deeply aligned in our commitment to develop and support technology that helps doctors help patients. Now as part of Telus, we can deepen our investments to improve the physician experience and productivity, redefine EMR in terms of outcomes rather than features and leverage the Telus brand, health portfolio and high-speed networking capabilities."

Telus Physician Solutions EMR will be enhanced with the addition of mobility, care collaboration, home care and consumer solutions. This will help doctors co-ordinate and share information with their extended health care team and their patients and families anywhere, any time.

Over the past 13 years Wolf Medical Systems has evolved EMR from a simple software product to a market leading cloud-based EMR solution. Since 2010, the company has exclusively committed to cloud-based technology to enhance the physician experience in terms of patient care and physician productivity while focusing on health outcomes. The result is a secure, highly available, highly reliable cloud-based EMR that reduces the investment required by physicians as they upgrade from paper files to electronic systems.