Healthcare IT News - June 2008 - (Page 14)

14 Healthcare IT News ■ June 2008 hoSpItalS & IdNs www.HealthcareITNews.com Implementation Guide for of Information Technology. the use Bar Code Technology Jane Metzger, one of the in Healthcare. The report leading authors of a whiterecommends hospitals take paper from First Consulting into account the costs of Group on Assessing Prothese technologies, training gress on the Journey to and implementation fees Organizational Excellence Jane Metzger when budgeting. and Fran Turisco, a consulIt is these initial and ongo- tant at FCG, said hospitals are slow ing costs of deploying and main- to adopt IT improvements such taining IT systems that hospi- as computerized physician order tals cite as their greatest barri- entry, bar coding and radio freers, reports the 2007 American quency identification because they Hospital Association survey, are all big projects with roll-outs Continued Progress Hospital Use that can take multiple years. “And, frankly money is big issue. These days, hospitals are faced with competing priorities and economically things are tight Fran Turisco right now. They are faced with difficult decisions about where to spend the money.” According to the FDA the cost of implementing a BPOC system in a 191-bed hospital approaches $377,000. At a 500-bed hospital the cost would approach $2 million, according to the HIMSS guide. The hospital board at St. DominicJackson Memorial Hospital, a 535bed, not-for-profit acute care hospital in Jackson, Miss., charged hospital executives with implementing a technology solution that would help increase patient safety. The hospital selected McKesson to implement a closed-loop, bar code-based medication management system. Tom Herrin, MD, who was medical director during the implementation and Janis Coates, nursing system coordinator, information services at St. Dominic, say it was the hospital board’s backing and strategic planning that really contributed to the success of the rollout. Metzger says hospitals like St. Dominic are examples of success stories, but not all vendors are on par with McKesson and not all can provide a single-vendor solution of the same equivalency. It was vendor inability to effectively deliver products/services to the expected level that was named one of the top three barriers to effective IT implementation by respondents to the 19th Annual 2008 HIMSS Leadership Survey. “We used McKesson for all of our automation,” said Mary Helen Bowen, assistant vice president of pharmacy services at St. Dominic. The best part about working with one vendor is that you are not dealing with multiple, competitive vendors, she said. “With McKesson it’s just one vendor so they have to make it work.” ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: SaFetY 0608 Rehab hospital uses IT to boost revenue HealTHCaRe IT News Editors WAshinGton – The National Rehabilitation Hospital, widely considered one of the nation’s top medical rehab facilities, has inked an IT deal that its leadership hopes will result in enhanced revenue and cost reductions. The NRH plans to implement a proprietary information system and consulting services from MediServe. The Chandler, Ariz.- based company will provide NRH with its MediLinks software for rehabilitative medicine. The services will be delivered in the NRH 137-bed inpatient facility and in its outpatient rehab network. The hospital went through an exhaustive process to find the ideal vendor, said Edward Eckenhoff, NRH’s founder and CEO. More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: reHaB 0608 saFeTy Continued from page 1 l improve patient safety. In order to have a bar code system at the point-of-care, or BPOC, ideally there should be interoperability within the system as well as the appropriate infrastructure, including databases and software, real-time communication, as well as decision support for alerts and warnings, according to the 2003 Healthcare Information Management Systems Society l For additional details about st. dominic’s implementation of bar code technology and how it works with its CPoe system, go to www.healthcareitnews.com and enter the e-Connect code above. e l Connect: orIoN 0608 www.HealthcareITNews.com HealthcareITNews.com HealthcareITNews.com www.healthcareitnews.com

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Healthcare IT News - June 2008

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