IT System Coordinates People, Processes, and Technology

Using embedded, workflow-driven, enterprise health information technology (IT) systems, clinicians are electronically managing patient care orders and the complete healthcare process.

Siemens Healthcare (Erlangen, Germany) has announced that Virtua (Marlton, NJ, USA), a multihospital healthcare system, has achieved a considerable clinical milestone in the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs). Physicians at all four Virtua hospitals (Berlin, Marlton, Mount Holly, and Voorhees, NJ, USA) are now entering clinical orders electronically through the use of the Soarian Clinicals enterprise health IT system. Electronic ordering is boosted by embedded functionality within Soarian that enables clinical staff to coordinate care between people, processes, and technology. The Virtua system is being used to help Virtua staff meet quality measures for safety and to comply with other health reform objectives. This level of care coordination is enabled by using solutions from Siemens Healthcare, which is in the middle of a two-year global initiative, called Agenda 2013, which aims to increase the company’s competitiveness and innovative capacity.

“Virtua is committed to excellence in patient care and to delivering that care in a sustainable way,” said Richard P. Miller, president and CEO at Virtua. “As we continue to evaluate ways to maintain high levels of service delivery across care settings, reliance on a contemporary, enterprise-wide EHR provides the foundation to achieve those goals. These solutions help ensure that our health system is well positioned to meet our care coordination goals across settings.”

At Virtua, caregivers have access to evidence at the point of care, and are creating interdisciplinary care plans to facilitate coordination of care across multiple teams. They are utilizing embedded workflows of the Soarian solution to additionally facilitate compliance with documentation. Virtua is already automating several manual data collection tasks by integrating vital signs data obtained from patient care monitoring systems into a patient’s EHR. This integration helps eliminate errors associated with the manual copying of information.

“As a top healthcare provider in New Jersey, we have recognized that many aspects of the care we deliver are improved by having access to a modern enterprise-wide clinical EHR solution – a solution that connects our providers across the enterprise,” said Alfred Campanella, executive vice president, strategic business growth and analytics at Virtua. “Soarian’s capabilities help us address clinical process through workflows that coordinate actions across a number of care settings and professions. The data that we generate about a patient is used to trigger responses and actions. We can tie these actions back to broad national quality initiatives. Not only are we providing high quality patient care, but we are also improving the way that we document these processes.”

Virtua also employs a closed-loop medication administration process that helps improve patient safety by providing IT solutions for medication reconciliation (from admission through discharge), medication ordering with clinical checking, Med Administration Check with barcode checking at the point of care and electronic prescribing. The clinical-checking component includes a full suite of notifications for drug-drug or drug-allergy interactions and more. Only about 20% of US hospitals have deployed this level of closed-loop electronic medication management.

Virtua’s use of enterprise-wide clinical health IT also allows the organization to begin leveraging powerful business analytics tools. These tools help Virtua management monitor organizational performance, measure progress, and identify opportunities for further improvement. Virtua is also tapping Siemens to help plot an organizational course through numerous quality reporting requirements. With Siemens strategic consulting services, Virtua can ensure that the health system receives appropriate reimbursement for the high-value care they deliver under Medicare [a publicly funded health insurance program] reimbursement changes known as the value-based purchasing program.

Related Links:
Siemens Healthcare
Virtua