Industry Insight

GE Launches EMR Interoperability Solution at Providence Health & Services

GE Healthcare recently announced the successful upgrade to its latest Centricity EMR platform at Providence Health & Services. GE Centricity EMR’s interoperative functionality ensures the same solution that Providence has depended on for years with additional features to address providers’ evolving interoperability demands. The Centricity EMR software provides workflow-based interoperability by creating a single record of problems, allergies, and medications across disparate applications. By embedding standards-based protocols, the EMR aggregates and translates information from disparate systems to form a complete patient picture that enriches existing workflows. The Centricity suite provides the appropriate patient information to the physicians at the optimal point of care.

All seven of Providence Health & Services’ Oregon-based hospitals and associated clinics, as well as outside local clinicians using Centricity EMR, will continue to collect, share, and access critical patient information through a standards-based health information exchange that can be used across the health system.

— Source: GE Healthcare

 

University at Buffalo Program Earns Patient Safety Designation

The Medication Management Research Network (MMRN) at the University at Buffalo’s (UB) New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences has a new role in helping improve patient safety in western New York as a result of its recent designation by the federal government as a patient safety organization.

The announcement comes about one year after the network was established by the UB Center of Excellence and the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences with the goal of establishing a statewide infrastructure for conducting research in medication management.

“As a patient safety organization, MMRN now has the ability not just to conduct valuable research on how specific healthcare decisions impact patient outcomes and healthcare costs, but it enables us to report back to healthcare providers on patterns we discover through data analysis,” explains Gene D. Morse, PharmD, principal investigator on the MMRN, a professor in the UB School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and associate director of the UB Center of Excellence. “It allows us to identify issues quickly, develop improved early-warning systems that communicate ways to reduce risk and improve quality, and to set up mechanisms through which we will report back to the clinical sites so that they can then take steps to efficiently avoid potentially dangerous and costly medication errors.”

For example, he says, it will now be possible for the organization to closely track potential drug interactions among prescriptions for individual patients and then report back to the clinical site about those interactions so the provider can make the necessary changes. These capabilities, Morse explains, have been made possible by the digitization of medical records, prescriptions, and other health information.

Currently, the network is working with healthcare providers in western New York to collect, store, and analyze deidentified information from patients with HIV/AIDS, kidney disease, and diabetes. The effort also involves collaborations with UB’s computer scientists, who are developing ways to digitize handwritten medical records and merge data sources through data fusion.

— Source: University at Buffalo

 

Precyse Solutions Appoints ICD-10 Program Management Director

Precyse Solutions, a provider of medical transcription, coding, and HIM technology solutions, has announced the appointment of Cortnie R. Simmons, RHIA, CCS, to the newly created position of director of ICD-10 program management and compliance.

Simmons is a 10-year HIM professional having held positions with Lexicode, HP3, and the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). Most recently, Simmons served as a coding and compliance consultant with the HCA, managing across the organization to ensure risk reduction through record review and providing training and education. In her new role, Simmons will be responsible for implementing Precyse’s ICD-10–related technology and service offerings and will oversee the rollout of ICD-10 training to Precyse’s internal consulting resources.

— Source: Precyse Solutions

 

A-Life Medical Promotes Jaye Connolly to President

A-Life Medical, Inc, a provider of healthcare-related computer-assisted coding (CAC) products and services, has announced that Jaye Connolly has been named president, effective immediately. Connolly previously had served as chief operating officer and chief financial officer for A-Life Medical for more than five years and led the initiative to expand A-Life’s CAC offerings into the hospital market.

In addition to her role as president, Connolly will serve on the A-Life Medical Board of Directors. Connolly has extensive management, finance, acquisition, and IPO experience having served in key management roles at six publicly traded corporations.

— Source: A-Life Medical, Inc