Customer Achievements Highlighted for Patient Safety Awareness Week
(3/6/2009)

In honor of Patient Safety Awareness Week (March 8-14), MEDITECH is proud to highlight a few of our customers' most recent achievements. By using I.T. to help guide care delivery, these facilities have reached major milestones in their efforts to ensure a safe working environment for clinicians, and better outcomes for patients.

Poudre Valley Health System (Fort Collins, CO) was recognized with the 2008 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award after 10 years of intiatives to improve quality, including patient safety. "The initiatives we've taken on a number of fronts—including quality and patient safety, strategic planning, process management, and work force engagement—were undertaken to serve a common goal of providing high-quality, low-cost health care to our community," says Russ Branzell, PVHS vice president and CIO at Poudre Valley. "Over time, these endeavors come together and coalesce, and begin to feed each other. I believe the Baldrige Award is the ultimate symbol of our efforts coming together," says Branzell.

Morehead Memorial Hospital (Eden, NC) took part in a group of trial implementations completed by the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN), paving the way for a secure nationwide interoperable health information exchange. "Their work and participation for the NHIN demonstration, as well as their involvement in NCHICA, exemplifies their commitment to deploying health information technology to improve patient safety and quality outcomes," says Barbara Hobbs, manager for MEDITECH's electronic health records initiatives. As part of the North Carolina Health Information Exchange, Morehead is enabling better health care statewide and allowing patients to play an active role in that care.

Blanchard Valley Health System (Findlay, OH) is maximizing patient safety in their ICU, by utilizing MEDITECH's Bedside Verification (BV) to document medication administration at the point of care. "With the data from BV automatically flowing to the on-line MAR, our care teams are able to review the activity from our nursing staff, as well as report on the data in a format which is easy to read and understand," says Debra Furbush, CPOE coordinator at Blanchard Valley. In addition, the facility's interface between medical monitors and MEDITECH's Nursing Status Board ensures nurses have the most up-to-date and accurate data at their fingertips.

At Hays Medical Center (Hays, KS), clinicians are preventing medical errors by using MEDITECH's reporting tools. "In the Pharmacy, reporting enables our staff to be more patient-focused, rather than task-focused. Patient-specific information can be located more easily though drill-down and filtering capabilities," says Jim Rorstrom, director of pharmacy. Hays is utilizing MEDITECH Advanced Clinicals in conjunction with their Pyxis machine, to ensure patients are always administered the correct medication in the correct dose.

Delnor Community Hospital (Geneva, IL) is cutting down on re-admissions for patients with Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) with the help of Patient Care Technologies' (PtCT) comprehensive telemanagement solution, well@home. The well@home system enhances patient safety by allowing patients to monitor daily test results at home, while the same results automatically update the electronic medical record viewed by their clinicians. "It's allowed some of our highest risk patients to successfully manage and maintain their health, while minimizing unpleasant and expensive trips to the hospital," says Reidun Juszczak, RN, Home Care Information System and Billing Coordinator for Delnor.

 

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