As a new organization in 2001, Fraser Health (FH) established the long-term strategic objective to continually enhance their care and services. Serving 1.44 million people in their service boundary, Fraser Health set out to create an integrated, sustainable health care system that would meet the needs of both present and future generations. For information technology improvements, Fraser Health required a partner that could establish an offsite development arm for systems work and provide project leadership and business support to existing staff for internal initiatives.
Fraser Health (FH) represents over 23,000 employees, 2,300 physicians, and nearly 5,000 volunteers that provide quality health care services ranging from acute care hospitals to community-based residential, home health, mental health and general health services. All technology improvements would need to address the challenges created by this organizational scale and diversity.
Technology at Fraser Health is not considered an end unto itself but an enabler of their people and teams. Underlying this 'people-first' mandate, are a number of mission critical technology systems that facilitate important day-to-day work. All technology enhancements and systems replacements would need to be approached so as to ensure that core applications, important to client care outcomes, would not be affected.
Fraser Health Course Registration System - Quartech personnel, working collaboratively with Fraser Health IM/IT teams, developed and deployed a secure n-tier web based system (.Net & MS SQL) to consolidate two course management business processes and tools (formerly an excel spreadsheet and an ms-access database) into one secure internal web-based solution
Fraser Health Community Care Linkage System - Quartech personnel, working collaboratively with the FH Business Area and FH IM/IT, are developing a secure n-tier web based system (.Net & MS SQL 2005) for Community Services coordination and metrics collection analysis and reporting
Website Querying and Navigation of Expert Research Data - Quartech personnel, working collaboratively with the Research Data Business Area and FH IM/IT, are developing a secure n-tier web based data querying and mining system (.Net & MS SQL 2005) for navigation of Expert Research Data
Fraser Health Mental Health & Addictions Reporting System - Quartech personnel, working in concert with the MH&A Business Area and FH IM/IT, developed and deployed a secure n-tier web based system (.Net & MS SQL 2005) for services metrics collection analysis and reporting
FHA HAMIS Web Form & Reporting System - Quartech was engaged to develop a web based data collection system for Mental Health and Addictions (MH&A). This system facilitates electronic collection of service utilization statistics and submission of utilization statistics and HAMIS data to the Ministry of Health. The system also collects additional data of interest to MH&A management to satisfy their reporting needs
The services provided to Fraser Health (since their first year of operation in 2001) include:
- Project management (including a SharePoint-based project site)
- Systems analysis
- Design and development
- Testing
- Implementation support
- Maintenance services (including intranet web applications)
- Enhancements
The technologies that were applied successfully at ICBC include:
- C#, MS Visual Basic 6, MS Visual Studio 6, MS Visual Source Safe, MS Access, ASP, COM, ADO, Windows Scripting, Windows Server 2003, MS SQL/SQR, MS SQL Server 2005, MS SQL Stored Procedures
Results of Quartech's long-term commitment to the success of Fraser Health's goals include:
- Realization of greater quality, schedule, and cost controls through the application of Quartech's time proven processes and delivery methods
- The ability to successfully balance project constraints with the need to achieve operational objectives
- Greater organizational effectiveness with improved alignment of cross-functional business information systems with corporate goals
- The ability to apply budget efficiently and realize a high degree of value from investment through the cost-effective building and maintenance of integrated and sustainable healthcare systems
Benefits of the Quartech service model to Fraser Health include:
- The efficiency of obtaining project and development resources from one reliable long-term source starting from their first year in operation as a new organization.
- Realization of their business goals through the successful on-site integration of key project leadership resources and the continued availability of a dedicated off-site .Net development team.
- Continued access to a diverse base of high-quality IT resources at cost-effective prices to complement Fraser Health staff and capabilities.