Mobile Healthcare: HSHS Selects Medicity For Consolidated Clinical Record And Physician Portal
Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) recently announced a contract with Medicity, Inc., effective Dec. 5, 2007, to configure a comprehensive, electronic-heath-record solution for its 13 hospitals in Wisconsin and Illinois. Medicity, a Salt Lake City-based health information software firm, will deploy its ProAccess clinical application suite and MediTrust interoperability platform to better serve HSHS patients and physicians by improving the quality, timeliness, and availability of healthcare information exchanged in and among its service communities.
Medicity's platform aggregates patient data from both inpatient and outpatient settings and routes results according to the physician's preferred access method mobile rounding device, fax machine, office printer, or Web browser. Longitudinal patient information is available in trended views via the Internet and can be staged for receipt into a physician office EMR.
"We selected Medicity because its solution provides us with more than a ‘hospital portal.' Medicity couples innovative clinical applications with a focus on infrastructure that enables clinical information-sharing across hospitals or within a community. This dual emphasis, together with options for exchanging data with physicians, makes Medicity the right partner for this important HSHS project," explained Mark Reifsteck, President of the Clinical Information Network, an HSHS subsidiary responsible for coordinating the initiative.
Medicity's HSHS plan is flexible enough to accommodate physician preferences for receiving and retrieving patient data from any location, an important factor in user adoption. Medicity's ProAccess Mobile solution provides an always-connected strategy for results distribution, physician rounding, and ePrescribing, using a tablet PC or PDA. Popular requests such as ambulatory order entry and eSignature are also supported via Medicity's platform.
"Physicians are increasingly asking for electronic access to clinical information," notes Kipp Lassetter, Medicity CEO. "Requests from physician practices to receive patient data directly into their EMR systems have multiplied in the last few years with the increased adoption of EMRs," he adds. "To tackle these requests one at a time without a framework would be costly and inefficient."
HSHS will integrate with major EMRs, giving physicians choices for receiving hospital data—including what, how, and when information is delivered. Medicity has developed an extensive library of physician application interfaces that includes most major EMRs and practice management systems. Electronic result distribution will substantially reduce dependence on paper—with its attendant risks and expense system wide.
"Ultimately, we will invite physician practices and other organizations to share information," adds Reifsteck. "The investment HSHS is making in Medicity's master person index and record locator service will lay the foundation for community data-sharing that will improve patient care."
About Medicity
Medicity, Inc. serves the healthcare industry with
Web-based portal solutions, EHRs, and community-wide patient indexing solutions for hospitals, payors, and large physician groups. The company serves more than 1,800 healthcare organizations and has been connecting healthcare since 1998. For more information please visit www.medicity.com.
SOURCE: Hospital Sisters Health System