High Tech businesses Associated Information Management and Medisolution: A puzzling entry into the Saskatchewan Health Care market
Nipawin - September 9, 2000 - by: Mario deSantis
MediSolution	A few days ago, I came across the surprising news that the business Associated Information
	Management (AIM) was hosting a web site called MediSolution delivering everything from
	accessing patient records to paying bills(1).
surface out of nowhere	Jim Ramsay, official with AIM, says the service is affordable to cash-strapped health
	districts, health service providers and first nations groups(2). How this business can
	surface out of nowhere when we have a crown corporation called SHIN (Saskatchewan
	Health Information Network) is quite a mystery.
tacit consent of the Minister	SHIN was given $40 million to develop a province wide health information network
	where health care agencies would be able to share medical records, and as at today we
	don't know what this crown corporation has been up(3). The projects currently listed
	by SHIN don't include any partnership with either AIM or MediSolution(4). Further,
	Saskatchewan health care districts have been the puppets of this government and as a
	consequence the entry of this web site into the governmental health care market can
	have occurred only with the tacit consent of the Minister of Health Pat Atkinson.
patient records	What is more puzzling is that this web site would allow districts and health providers
	to share their patient records and at this time I don't have confirmation that The Health
	Information Protection Act has been proclaimed to be effective(5).
---------------Endnotes:
1. - -	MediSolution signs $2.5-million contract to launch Internet-based technology to bring better health care to Saskatchewan communities and First Nations reserves http://micro.newswire.ca/releases/September2000/06/c1114.html/84663-0
2. -	Sask. website to store medical records, CBC Saskatchewan, http://www.sask.cbc.ca/ Web Posted | Sep 6 2000 8:59 PM EDT
3. -	Associate Minister of Health Judy Junor: defending the SHIN flop at the Legislature, by Mario deSantis, April 13, 2000
4. -	SHIN's Projects, this site was accessed on September 8, 2000 http://www.shin.sk.ca/projects/project.htm
5. -	The Health Information Protection Act, Government of Saskatchewan, http://www.gov.sk.ca/health/publications/hipamain.htm
------------References
	MediSolutions corporate webs site.
	MediSolutions site map
	This Alberta press release describes the use of the software from MediSolutions
	This March document explains what MediSolutions is and how it works.
	The client download page for MediSolutions (editor's note: this site and its software are microsoft based that would make its security level on a scale of 1 to 10 about a "2".)
Followup: See Letters, and Mario deSantis' effort to clarify what is going on.