Bayhealth Medical Center picks McKesson for EMR

Bayhealth Medical Center, which serves central and southern Delaware, has begun a three-year initiative to deploy McKesson's Horizon Clinicals applications in an effort to establish an electronic medical record (EMR), McKesson said.

The initiative began earlier this year as nurses at the 399-bed medical center began using McKesson's AccuDose-Rx automated dispensing cabinets to more accurately store, track and dispense medications. Complementing this, the organization will automate critical pharmacy functions with bar-code technology and unit-dose packaging. As a result physicians will be able to electronically order medications. At the bedside, nurses will use handheld scanning devices to verify the accuracy of medications prior to administering them to patients.

Bayhealth will also install McKesson's Horizon Care Record, a comprehensive electronic medical record system that allows multiple caregivers to simultaneously view clinical documents and medical images.

These applications will serve as the foundation to ultimately deploy Horizon Expert Orders, McKesson's clinical decision support and computerized physician order entry system.

The transition is likely to be smooth given the organization's experience with these types of systems. Over 80 percent of Bayhealth physicians are already using McKesson's Web-based Horizon Physician Portal to review patient medical histories, test results and reports, as well as electronically sign charts from on-site or remote locations.  As physicians increasingly look to reduce administrative work and free up time for patient care, their portal use has jumped dramatically -- up 265 percent from 2004 -- with 400 logins per day.

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