Mythical ‘paperless office’ a reality

Virtual Clinic Care removes paper from the medical office. Designed by Dr. Greg Higgins and Matt Davis, vCC is to save time and money in the health care system. Above, the founders flank MP Daryl Kramp and PELA CFDC board member Richard Potter, at the announcement of Community Futures Program investement funding.

A Community Futures Program investment supporting the new tech start up ‘Virtual Clinic Care’ founded by Dr. Greg Higgins and Matt Davis makes the mythical paperless office a reality.

Virtual Clinic Care aims to remove paper documents and provide workflow for electronic documents and data. Its design focuses on usability and increased productivity, saving time and money in the health care system.

“It is exciting to be able to work on such cutting-edge technology right here in Prince Edward County,” says Higgins, vCC president.

Five years after successfully implementing an Electronic Medical Record system, Dr. Higgins was dismayed at the tremendous quantity of paper that continued to be used in the workflow of the office. He developed a prototype paperless system which allowed him to eliminate fax machines, printers and drawers full of paper.

While it worked well, he thought it was far too expensive and complex for general use. Under development since 2011, virtual Clinic Care delivers this advanced office virtualization functionality in an intuitive and easy to use application.

Higgins has always had a keen interest in the use of technology in medicine. In 2006, he led the introduction of an Electronic Medical Record system that is used by all members of the Prince Edward Family Health Team. He is also a member of the Bell EMR (formerly Xwave) medical advisory board, developed an interface connecting Quinte Health Care Information Services and the EMR with eHealth and served as a member Clinical working group cNEO (Connecting Northern and Eastern Ontario) a $37M eHealth project.

“vCC is a niche product targeted at physicians and community health clinics,” said Matt Davis, vice-president. “The business model is based on a monthly subscription service much like Google apps. The vCC application leverages the agility, security, scalability, and data redundancy of Cloud-based platforms. The software enables effective routing, prioritization, task management, security and remote access to the structured data within the virtual office.

Virtual Clinic Care’s first release will be the ‘Forms Edition’.Despite increasing use of Electronic Medical Records in health care providers’ offices, and information systems in hospitals, the healthcare industry continues to use many pre-printed paper forms which are expensive and difficult to produce, distribute and keep up-to-date.

vCC addresses this problem with a cloud-based form repository which can be efficiently accessed by any healthcare worker at no cost. Form owners such as hospitals realize immediate savings as they no longer need to print and distribute their forms.

The ‘Office Edition’ will provide true virtualization of the health care provider’s office environment, finally making the mythical ‘paperless office’ a reality. By eliminating fax machines, printers and staff walking around the office carrying pieces of paper, or searching for a particular piece of paper hiding somewhere in the office, costs are reduced and office efficiency is optimized.

Davis is a senior technology executive and information systems architect with more than 20 years experience in the high-tech hubs of Silicon Valley, Texas and Colorado, He is also a recognized expert in the field of cloud based systems and information management – where the issues of global scale, security and immense volumes (billions of documents) are the norm.

vCC will be locating in the PEC Innovation Centre on Bridge Street, Picton.
MP Daryl Kramp announced the federal funding at the Picton Prince Edward Lennox and Addington Community Futures Development office.
“This investment will provide not only economic stimulus to communities in Prince Edward-Hastings as a result of job creation, but will also help to provide a valuable service to Canadians by making our health care more efficient, said  Kramp.

vCC will receive $15,000 toward employee Ray Bowness’ work as an intern on the team.
The funding is one of four youth internships Kramp announced.
Trevor Crowe, co-owner of Crowe Productions, has hired Luke Vanden Bosch as an editor for his new Walk Thru Online division.
Kevin Armitage, of Armitage Custom Homes, is using $15,000 in funding to help expand his business by employing Kyle Lane as an intern.
Craig Schoen, of Dealer Plus Inc, will also receive $15,000 to expand operations. Dealer Plus builds web-enabled productivity and marketing tools for car dealerships. It has a clientele base of about 400 car dealerships in Canada and hopes to expand contracts with the U.S.

Kramp also announced $10,000 in funding toward the installation of a new elevator at the Books & Company which improves access to the second floor Lipson Room for community events.

“PELA CFDC is pleased to partner with vCC in the development of software that improves the efficiency of the healthcare system. We have world-class talent in our community in vCC founders Dr. Greg Higgins and Matt Davis and are excited about the market opportunities for medical software in our community, province and country,” said Debra Marshall, Chair of PELA CFDC.