This project is to expand the use of an innovative developed-in-Quebec person-centered patient portal, Opal (opalmedapps.com), from a single medical speciality (cancer care) to multiple specialities in order to bring its benefits to additional Quebec patients, prove its general utility, and improve its potential marketability. Opal (opalmedapps.com) is a novel person-centered patient portal mobile phone app that was built at and has been released to cancer patients at the Cedars Cancer Centre of the MUHC. As an innovative person-centered patient portal, it not only provides patients with access to their electronic medical records (appointment schedules, lab results, clinical notes, etc.) but also empowers them with automatically-personalized educational material tailored to their disease and phase of treatment; an important feature that is missing from most contemporary patient portals.
This project aims expand the use of Opal to the Montreal Children’s Hospital (MCH), starting with the Nephrology clinic where a detailed study into the clinical and economic impacts of the installation will be undertaken. Lessons learned from deployment of Opal into the MCH will facilitate eventual expansion into all of the departments of the MUHC and potentially into all Quebec healthcare institutions.