Emanuel Medical Center (Turlock, CA), has gone LIVE with Data Express, the MEDITECH and Forward Advantage solution which transmits electronic patient data from hospitals to affiliated physician offices and clinics. This 221-bed acute care facility, which includes a comprehensive medical campus, was looking for a solution that would help them meet the growing interoperability needs of their physicians. Emanuel is the first MEDITECH MAGIC customer to go LIVE with Data Express.

"We needed a solution that would work with our MEDITECH MAGIC HCIS and support the growing demand for HL7 clinical data to be sent to our physician electronic medical records (EMRs)," says Wendy Burns, CIO, Emanuel Medical Center. "We chose Data Express because it was a collaborative effort by Forward Advantage with MEDITECH, and as such, it's pre-configured to accept MEDITECH data. It's also based on the Communication Director platform, which we have found to be very reliable."

MEDITECH and Forward Advantage developed this interoperability solution for customers to seamlessly communicate with other health care organizations. Data Express receives HL7 Lab, Radiology, and departmental data from a standard set of MEDITECH interfaces designed specifically for Data Express, and using a "one-to-many" model, then transforms the data into a set of standard HL7 outputs for physicians' EMRs. And because many health care facilities are faced with the task of delivering data to a large variety of EMRs, Forward Advantage is working directly with EMR vendors to develop and offer data output libraries designed specifically for these EMRs.

"MEDITECH is uniquely focused on mobilizing data to meet the needs of a variety of care communities. Data Express, our collaborative effort with Forward Advantage, provides a standards-based approach to deliver HL7 data to physicians' EMRs. This approach ensures data integrity, a critical element of interoperability, while providing scalability on a trusted platform. Data Express empowers MEDITECH customers to mobilize their data: to see it, use it, and share it," says Larry O'Toole, manager of business relations for MEDITECH.

Since Emanuel implemented the Data Express solution, they have been able to successfully deliver MEDITECH HL7 data to several physicians at Romeo Medical Clinic, a neighboring health care clinic in Turlock, which uses the GE Centricity Practice EMR solution. Dr. Mike Romeo, president and co-founder of Romeo Medical Clinic, was very pleased with the results of Emanuel's implementation. "We are excited about how fast the interface was created and implemented, and it has enabled us to receive medical information quickly and efficiently. The solution has saved us numerous phone calls to the lab for results, to the x-ray department for readings, and to physical therapy for office notes, all of which require office staff time. Data Express has allowed us to focus on what we, as physicians, do best —provide excellent patient care."

By utilizing Data Express, Emanuel Medical Center was able to meet its interoperability goals and provide physicians with clinical HL7 data. "We are very excited about the success that Data Express is experiencing in health care communities," says Darla Rigg, vice president of marketing and product management for Forward Advantage. "Data Express not only makes our MEDITECH customers' lives easier through a streamlined deployment model, physicians are also happy with the solution and its positive impact on patient care, which is the ultimate goal of any data mobilization strategy."

For more information about our customers' experiences with Data Express, check out this video interview with Emanuel Medical Center.