Electronic Health Records

The big buzzword in electronic health records this year is "integrated workflow." Vendors are showcasing systems that focus on streamlining everything from image access to billing. Another focus is the ongoing national efforts toward interconnectivity through regional health information organizations (RHIOs) and Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise standards.

Agfa's Healthcare Business Group (booth #5633) is showcasing technologies designed to build an image-rich EHR, including image and information management systems for radiology, cardiology, orthopedics, and women's care; speech recognition for reporting; web-based enterprise scheduling; and a single sign-on patient record and images system that brings together disparate hospital information systems under a common view. Agfa's state-of-the-art technology for the EHR can be seen in action at HIMSS as one, single, integrated workflow.

Allscripts (booth #4841) is using HIMSS to debut two new modules of the TouchWorks EHR. The modular approach allows physicians to deploy the full EHR in stages, making the deployment easier for all users.  The two additional modules provide medical groups with the tools to easily take part in clinical trials and pay-for-performance initiatives. TouchWorks Study Manager is the clinical trial management system in use by more than 1,800 research organizations that include more than 10,000 research professionals. Study Manager is designed to make the process of conducting clinical trials more efficient, more organized, more accurate, and more profitable.

TouchWorks Analytics offers healthcare organizations strategies to leverage existing information within electronic health records to control costs, generate income, and improve practice efficiency. With the proper analytical tools, organizations can drive clinical excellence by managing pay-for-performance initiatives, measuring key performance indicators, supporting clinical trials, and providing patient population management. Accessing the clinical data in a format designed for near real-time decision-making can transform the art and science of delivering healthcare. Benefits include improved rapid access to information, advanced clinical measures to increase revenue opportunities and accessibility to all levels of the organization.

Axolotl Corp. (booth #5933) is showcasing its work with RHIO customers that are members of a consortium awarded a new contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop a prototype for a nationwide health-information network architecture. Axolotl is working with the group to develop an architecture and prototype network for secure information sharing among hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies and physicians. Axolotl contributes 10 years experience in connecting healthcare communities that have successfully deployed electronic medical records for physicians, secure community-wide data repositories, electronic ordering, e-prescribing, disease registries and community wide patient and provider indexes.

Axolotl customers HealthBridge and Santa Cruz County have successfully connected thousands of healthcare providers - improving healthcare quality, safety and efficiency. HealthBridge includes 19 hospitals and reference labs and more than 3,500 users that have been connected and accessing clinical results since 2000. Together they are saving more than $7 million per year in distribution costs alone. In Santa Cruz county, patient health information is shared between independent, even competitive organizations. Physicians receive lab and radiology results, write electronic prescriptions, place orders, manage transcribed reports and securely communicate with their colleagues, establishing continuity of care throughout the community.

Cerner Corp. (booths #2813, 2712) is featuring its Cerner Bridge Medical solutions - a barcode-enabled, point-of-care system. The technology is successfully implemented at Bon Secours, University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, Vassar Brothers Medical Center and Clarian North Medical Center.

Through the agreement with Bon Secours, Cerner plans to implement its Bridge Medication Administration and Bridge Specimen Collections at 15 of Bon Secours' hospitals, increasing the safety and accuracy of specimen collection and medication administration processes at nearly 3,000 bedsides. The Bridge Medication Administration solution will help eliminate error in the medication process beyond just the "five rights" (patient, medication, dose, route, and time). Using the Bridge Specimen Collections solution, caregivers at each of the hospitals will know they are collecting the right specimen from the right person through a simple, six-step point-and-scan process.

Dell Inc. (booth #3418) is unveiling the Dell eHealthcare Architecture, a comprehensive portfolio of offerings to arm healthcare organizations with technology to improve overall operational efficiency, facilitate the sharing of patient information, and improve the quality of patient care. That includes IT infrastructure components that enable care providers to make informed treatment decisions by giving them access to real-time patient data when and where they need it most. Dell offers healthcare providers a host of solutions to ensure real-time, 24x7 patient availability, the ability to create a secure information network to effectively manage critical patient data that is ensuring its availability when and where needed, and IT best practices that help healthcare organizations reduce operating expenses.

eClinicalWorks is previewing version 7.0 of its integrated EMR and practice management solution which includes two integrated components: eClinicalWorks EMR (electronic medical record) and eClinicalWorks PM (Practice Management). The EMR solution manages patient flow from check-in to check-out while the PM solution is designed to instantly streamline the medical billing process. Both are ideal for small, medium and large multi-specialty and multi-location practice networks. eClinicalWorks also can aid front offices with appointment scheduling management and increase communication between practices and patients through its patient portal.

EMC Corp. is featuring in its booth electronic health record partners to help streamline clinical radiology workflow and meet regulatory requirements. EMC Electronic Health Record solutions with partners allows healthcare organizations to adopt a tiered networked storage approach to move towards the digital transformation, ensuring instantaneous image access and availability for clinicians, decreasing time to treatment.

GE Healthcare (booth #1719) with the addition of IDX Systems Corp. (booth #4509) positions GE Healthcare as a leading provider of global healthcare information solutions, with comprehensive inpatient/outpatient EHR solutions, administrative practice management tools and enterprise image and information management solutions that support specialty departments and enhance procedural throughput.

Centricity Physician Office-EMR is filled with essential decision-support tools for all primary-care and specialty practices and includes advanced functionality for pediatricians. The EMR advancements consist of advanced medication management, including dosing calculators and medical monographs that are accessible at the point of care, advanced image management and advanced growth charts. GE is highlighting its Primary Care and Pediatric Care Kits that enable point-of-care disease management and help physicians and practices improve the quality of care while improving efficiency.

Centricity Enterprise EHR version 8.0 represents a broad-based and comprehensive upgrade to the 7.5 version, building upon GE's experience in specialty and non-specialty settings, as well as leveraging all products within the clinical information system family to promote clinical enterprise workflow. Enhancements include census management, results review, CPOE, decision support, security, medication management and enterprise workflow.

Initiate Systems Inc. (booth #2427) is highlighting Identity Hub software 7.0, the industry standard EMPI that extends data integration reach by not only indexing, but also retrieving data stored outside the software. It also provides flexibility to customize the interface and the ability to fine-tune the comparison algorithm.

McKesson Corp.'s (booths #2137, 2543) product portfolio helps organizations streamline workflow and digitize the patient record to enhance the safety, quality and efficiency of care. McKesson is highlighting solutions at HIMSS to automate virtually every aspect of healthcare delivery, from the hospital to outpatient settings, the physician office and into patients' homes. The company is displaying its Horizon Clinicals portfolio, including the Connecting Physicians offering, which leverages e-prescribing and online physician-patient communication solutions, proven points for jump-starting community-based EHRs. Attendees also can see the McKesson Medication Safety Advantage, which combines software, automation, packaging, distribution and consulting solutions to help providers prevent medication errors at every stage where they can occur.

Illustrating its commitment to enabling a truly connected healthcare community, Misys Healthcare Systems (booth #721) is debuting improvements to Misys Connect, which provides the data sharing infrastructure and web-based clinical data viewer necessary to connect physicians with hospitals, other community physicians, homecare providers and their patients. Built on a service oriented architecture, the newest version of Misys Connect follows Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) profiles to connect and exchange a patient's health information using Cross Enterprise Document Sharing standards of IHE, and by producing a Care Record Summary with collected information as directed by the physician. With Misys Connect, physicians and other caregivers who are registered users in any of the Misys Optimum clinical care setting application systems - Misys CPR, Misys EMR and Misys Homecare - are automatically enabled for access to clinical information made available in a federation of such systems.
 

MRVIEW, LLC (booth #7345) is exhibiting an EHR-compatible document-imaging solution. The MRVIEW Total Document Imaging Solution features user-friendly system design, and complete document-conversion services, which enables the streamlined incorporation of existing paper records for active patients into an electronic health record. Implementing MRVIEW before implementing an electronic record system means patient records become instantly available to multiple-simultaneous users, anywhere, anytime, time delays and expenses associated with paper-record filing, retrieval, delivery, and tracking are eliminated, and the EHR will be populated with critical clinical data from start-up. MRVIEW is built upon a platform that is designed with the flexibility to meet healthcare's ever-changing requirements. In full support of HIPAA compliance, MRVIEW incorporates audit trails, restricted-access lists, and selective lockout. Ames Color-File, the leading provider of filing systems and services for the U.S. healthcare industry is now marketing this system.

Philips Medical Systems (booth #5017) is demonstrating Xtenity Enterprise's ability to interoperate with Philips medical equipment, monitors and software, showcasing the benefits of having access to the electronic health record (EHR) throughout the patient care cycle, using a suite of integrated products. Rich interfaces have been developed between Xtenity and Philips medical equipment, monitors and software resulting in a total healthcare IT solution that seamlessly integrates every touch point in the care cycle from diagnosis, treatment and follow-up. Xtenity includes an enterprise data repository, inpatient, ambulatory, registration, scheduling, ADT, and revenue cycle management all built on a single platform. Xtenity's E-Health solutions include the Patient Portal and the Provider Portal, allowing organizations to leverage the power of the web, and extend their services to their patients and throughout the healthcare community.

Siemens Medical Solutions (booth #1237) is exhibiting its new generation Soarian health information solution and demonstrating its capabilities in supporting the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) cross-enterprise document sharing profile by participating in the IHE Interoperability Showcase.

Through its new generation Soarian portfolio of solutions, Siemens will demonstrate how IT solutions with a workflow orientation can manage not just transactions and data, but also the process of healthcare delivery and the interactions between members of the healthcare community. Visitors will see firsthand how Soarian's workflow technology reduces manual process steps; monitors, tracks, and escalates processes automatically; and orchestrates clinical best practices - throughout the enterprise or at the clinical departmental level.

Varian Medical Systems (booth #3412) is highlighting its MedOncology information management system, which combines the benefits of a comprehensive electronic health record (EHR) with guideline-driven care, workflow management, and decision support. It also incorporates other clinical operations such as pharmacy, billing, lab, clinical trials, and communication with external healthcare providers. Clinicians using Varian's MedOncology report that the software facilitates clinically efficient delivery of high-quality patient care.

Varian's MedOncology tool draws from a robust relational database that can generate more than 600 different types of reports to give clinicians access to virtually any type of data about each patient's treatment. In addition, the Varian MedOncology system has interfaces for connecting with more than 60 different vendor systems and lab devices.