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Editorial: Dallas Howe - The Man and the Dream - Tenacity Personified
Steven Huesing, Editor
Mr. Huesing pays tribute to the achievements and accomplishments of one of Canada’s true pioneers in the Healthcare Information systems industry.

COACH COLUMN - What have you done for Dr. Mom today?
Gil Sampson, Consultant, Sierra Systems Group, Ottawa, ON
Mr. Sampson shares some observations on the challenge that we all face in the health information and knowledge arena - that of transferring knowledge. He discusses how COACH, among others, contributes to sharing information with "front-line" decision-makers
who deserve the best available health knowledge.

Taming the Illusive EHR: Lessons from the Trenches
Michael H. Nusbaum, President, M.H. Nusbaum & Associates, Victoria, BC
Mr. Nusbaum describes SYNAPSE an EHR initiative focused on for mental health and addictions. Originally conceived as a solution to one health authority’s need for a mental health information system, the project has been steadily gaining credibility and strength as a mental health slice of the EHR.

Internet Based Laboratory Results Distribution
Jim Slater, LIS Project Manager, Saint Mary’s Hospital Laboratory, New Westminster, BC
Mr. Slater describes the somewhat unique public-private partnership between Saint Mary’s Hospital and PathNET. Together, they have established an electronic interface for the distribution of laboratory results to physician offices via the Internet using HL7 messages in
real-time - making laboratory report distribution more efficient, and faster, and reducing the number of errors due to transcription and delivery.

Building A (Health Care) Future For Ourselves
Serge Taillon, CIHI Columnist, Director, Client Relations & Communications, Canadian Institute for Health Information, Ottawa, ON
Mr. Taillon ruminates on the ways we are collectively propelling ourselves towards an improved health system through the effective use of technologies and the impediments that we need to surmount.

Infoway talks about alliances, partnerships and collaborations
David Wattling, e-Health Editor, Managing Partner, The Courtyard Group, Toronto, ON
Mr. Wattling interviews Myrna Francis, Infoway’s Senior Vice President of Strategic Alliances to grasp a better and more thorough understanding of Infoway’s strategies, their deployment and their impact on the pan-Canadian environment.

The Proverbial Fork in the Road . . . An IT parable
John Breakey, Network Industry Columnist, President, UNIS LUMIN, Oakville, ON
Using an amusing parable, the article deals with the fork in the road -’VOIP - IP enabling a PBX’, (a.k.a. a converged PBX), and ‘VoIP - Voice enabling a LAN’. (VoIP - Voice over IP). What a dilemma! What direction to take? Why take a path at all? Mr. Breakey illuminates an otherwise dark path.

The Journey to CompetenceLand
H. Dominic Covvey, Education Editor, Professor, Faculty of Science, Agfa Research Chair in Health Informatics, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON
More and more healthcare providers are taking the steps to learn what it is they need to know about Health Informatics and then doing something about it. Prof. Covvey provides some guidance in terms of where you are going, where to find the map, and how to get there.

Chaos Reigns! Health Privacy in Canada
Brendan Seaton, Senior Editor, President and CEO, Priva-C, Fredericton, NB
We are now on the countdown for full implementation of the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) in January 2004. Health care organizations across the country are wondering how PIPEDA will affect them. According to Seaton, nobody really knows. He describes the issues that need to be addressed for it all to make sense.

Baby CareLink - Collaborative Healthware Delivering Results
Charles Safran, M.D.
Larry Gottlieb, M.D.
Clinician Support Technologies, Newton, M
Healthcare has only recently started using Internet-based, collaborative technology to improve its business processes. Little progress has been made in using collaborative technology to improve the care processes for clinicians and patients, or the health outcomes desired. The authors describe Baby CareLink, a successful example of collaborative healthware