Information Systems scores big

Community’s Information Systems (IS) department recently returned from Boston toting some impressive hardware. But not the kind of “hardware” one might normally associate with computer systems.

Community was named “Innovator of the Year” at the GE Healthcare User Summit because of enhancements doctors and IS staff made to GE’s Centricity Enterprises system (formerly LastWord). The innovations improved the way patient information is transferred between physicians and clinical staff as well as between day and night shift employees.

Community Medical Centers’ Lorraine Vargas (center) accepts the 2007 Innovator of the Year award in Boston. Also pictured are the executives from GE Healthcare Integrated IT Solutions who judged the nominations; (from l to r) Dana Alexander, R.N., Chief Nursing Officer, Brandon Savage, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Vishal Wanchoo, President/CEO and Laurent Rotival, Senior VP/General Manager of Enterprise Solutions.

Registered nurse Lorraine Vargas, part of the IS team who worked on the project, explained the improvements stemmed from concerns that University Medical Center (UMC) doctors had about moving to Community Regional.

“UMC was preparing to move into a bigger facility that had different ways of doing things. The doctors wanted to be sure that no critical information was lost in the transition and that they’d be able to easily find all their patients in the new facility,” Vargas said.

The result was a system that improved efficiency and communication between caregivers. Physicians no longer have to re-type patient information that is already in the system and other caregivers now have quick and easy access to the latest physician notes on each of their patients.

Judges for the Innovator of the Year award evaluated each nomination without knowing which health care provider it belonged to. The competition included OSF Healthcare System-Illinois, Ministry Health Care-Wisconsin, Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center-North Carolina, Park Nicholett-Minnesota, UCSF-University of California San Francisco, Montefiore Medical Center-New York, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital-Pennsylvania, Scripps Health-California and Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center-Connecticut.

This story was reported by Michael Bailey. He can be reached at mbailey@communitymedical.org.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007