Access to accurate and timely information is crucial to the delivery of the high-quality services provided by Kinark and its partner providers. But, when every organization has different systems that don’t ‘talk’ to one another, and use different parameters for data collection and reporting, it makes it hard to compare notes, benefit from each other’s knowledge and experience, and identify trends and opportunities for quality improvement.
Over the past few years, Kinark’s IT team has worked in collaboration with the agency’s clinical service teams and its partner agencies to open the lines of communication between their distinct client information systems (CIS). The work has involved standardizing what, and how, client information is collected to comply with Ministry performance reporting requirements and creating a secure gateway through which information can easily flow.
The CIS project team (from left to right) Ahmed Sabith, Developer – IT; Matthew Villeneuve, Manager – IT; Jaikishan Chhabaria, Business Analyst – IT; Edward Chow and Jasmin Ibrakovic, Software Developers – IT.
Last year, Kinark’s tech team focused on further enhancements to our own CIS, and on the development of tools our clinicians can use to track client experiences and monitor treatment outcomes with a view to improving the overall quality of care.
Should these tools prove to be effective, they could potentially be used by other service partners to support quality improvement and inform service planning and delivery across Kinark’s five service areas.
When dealing with highly personal and sensitive client information, we are mindful of the need to protect the information entrusted to us, which is why we take all available steps to safeguard this information.