Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network Licenses Utilization
Management System to Improve Access to Care in Erie St. Clair

TORONTO, Sept. 7 /CNW/ - Medworxx Inc. ("Medworxx") (TSXV: MWX), provider of healthcare solutions for patient flow, compliance and education, is pleased to announce that the Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) and Consolidated Health Information Services (CHIS) have licensed the Medworxx Utilization Management System (UMS) for all of its hospitals following a competitive public tender process.

The Erie St. Clair LHIN is one of 14 LHINs in Ontario that were established by the Government of Ontario in order to plan, fund, and monitor health care services at the local level. The Erie St. Clair LHIN hospitals include; Windsor Regional Hospital, Bluewater Health, Chatham Kent Health Alliance, Leamington District Memorial Hospital, and Hôtel-Dieu Grace Hospital.

The Medworxx UMS is a concurrent review tool used by clinicians that includes acute and non-acute sets of criteria that are applied to patients to determine their appropriateness for admission and assesses patients daily to determine their continued appropriateness to be in a particular care setting.  Medworxx UMS improves the patient flow in hospitals by quickly identifying barriers, delays and interruptions to the plan of care to support immediate resolution, as well as establishes a common framework for improved communication between healthcare providers.

The Medworxx UMS is currently used to assess patients in more than 7,000 beds in Ontario, which represents approximately 38% of all acute care beds and more than 13,000 beds in the rest of Canada. The Erie St. Clair LHIN is the second Ontario LHIN to license the Medworxx UMS at a LHIN level.

The Erie St. Clair LHIN has invested more than $200,000.00 along with contributions from each hospital into this program to address the serious challenges faced by all Canadian hospitals to improve access to care by streamlining their patient flow processes and reducing the number of inpatients who are designated Alternate Level of Care (ALC), which means that their care needs no longer require a hospital stay.

"All of our hospitals are looking at ALC issues. This project is a big step forward by all of our hospitals to collectively understand and improve our ALC challenges in Erie St. Clair. Working together, the LHIN and hospitals are levering a big improvement in care to elders. I would like to thank CHIS and the staff from all the hospitals for their very thorough work evaluating all the potential products and making this decision." Gary Switzer, CEO, Erie St. Clair LHIN

Consolidated Health Information Services, a regional shared services organization that provides information technology and information management, leadership and service delivery to all of the hospitals, as well as other health service providers in the Erie St. Clair LHIN, will work with Medworxx to implement and support the system.

"The Medworxx tool represents a huge advance for hospitals in Erie St. Clair by helping them to proactively monitor and manage patient flow and allowing them to anticipate access issues and mitigate them as quickly as possible. CHIS is excited to partner with Medworxx to bring this innovative utilization system to Erie St. Clair.  Being at the forefront of health care information technology, management and service provision is what CHIS is all about and we're thrilled to be able to support the hospitals in adopting this proven solution." Stephen Banyai, President and CEO, Consolidated Health Information Services (CHIS).

"Medworxx has successfully rolled out our Utilization Management System across much of the country and ultimately would like each hospital in Canada using our solution and think that there's a very strong business case to support this goal. We plan to leverage our Canadian success to expand this solution internationally. The Erie St Clair LHIN contract is further evidence of the value of this solution to address an international concern related to patient flow," said Dan Matlow, President & CEO, Medworxx.  The contract with the Erie St. Clair LHIN will bring more than $800,000 in revenue to Medworxx over a 5 year period.

About Erie St. Clair LHIN
The Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network is one of 14 Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) that have been established and launched in Ontario.  LHINs are community-based organizations funded by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to plan, fund and coordinate services delivered by Hospitals, Long-Term Care Homes, Community Care Access Centres, Mental Health and Addiction Agencies, Community Health Centres and Community Support Services. 

Erie St. Clair LHIN services the regions of Chatham-Kent, Sarnia/Lambton and Windsor/Essex which includes over 649,000 people and supports an annual budget of over $900 million for our local health care services.

About CHIS
Consolidated Health Information Services (CHIS) is a regional shared services organization mandated to plan for, support and implement IT/IM and eHealth initiatives for its members and other Health Service Providers within the Erie St. Clair LHIN region.

Consolidated Health Information Services (CHIS) was originally founded by Chatham-Kent Health Alliance and Windsor Regional Hospital.  Bluewater Health joined in 2008 and in June 2010, Hôtel-Dieu Grace Hospital and Leamington District Memorial Hospital became Founding Members of CHIS as well.  Now, all five hospitals in the Erie St. Clair LHIN are Founding Members under the CHIS corporate By-Laws. 

About Medworxx
Medworxx provides healthcare solutions for patient flow, compliance and education.  Founded in 2004, Medworxx products are now used by more than 500,000 people at over 300 hospitals across North America. Medworxx: our market is healthcare, our vertical is knowledge. For more information, visit www.medworxx.com. 

The statements made in this Press Release may contain forward-looking statements that may involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual events or results could differ materially from the Company's expectations and projections. The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed this press release and neither approved nor disapproved the information contained in this press release.

For further information:

Susan Gershman, EVP Operations & Marketing
416-642-1278 x320
416-574-2349
[email protected]