Telus Corp. (TSX:T) is moving into the electronic medical records market, following the acquisition of Vancouver technology firm Wolf Medical Systems, which the companies announced this morning.
Wolf is a cloud-based electronic medical record (EMR) provider.
Vancouver-based Telus announced that it plans to use the acquisition to launch a new line of business within Telus Health Solutions, called Telus Physician Solutions.
The companies have not disclosed terms of the transaction.
In a company statement, Paul Lepage, senior vice-president for Telus Health Solutions, called EMRs “an essential building block to an efficient health-care system in Canada.”
“While EMRs have been proven to increase efficiency and performance at both the clinical and regional healthcare system levels, Canada’s EMR penetration rate of about 32% lags behind other OECD counties,” he said.
“By committing to the EMR market with a best-in-class solution, combined with the connectivity that our wireless and wireline broadband networks enable, we are positioned to help increase this adoption rate that will in turn improve work processes, efficiencies in service delivery and patient health outcomes.”
Telus Physician Solutions will be led by physican and Wolf founder Dr. Brendan Byrne.
In a statement, Byrne called the acquisition “a tremendous opportunity” for Wolf.
“Now as part of Telus, we can deepen our investments to improve the physician experience and productivity, redefine EMR in terms of outcomes rather than features and leverage the Telus brand, health portfolio and high-speed networking capabilities,” he said.
Jenny Wagler
@JennyWagler_BIV