Healthcare IT News - August 2008 - (Page 16)

16 Healthcare IT News ■ August 2008 hoSpItalS & IdNs www.HealthcareITNews.com New England hospitals join virtual network to boost care Link aims to prevent pressure ulcers. By Molly MeRRIll, Associate Editor IRVING, TX – Nineteen New England hospitals have joined a Rapid Adoption Network, a virtual network that will allow them to share information about their clinical practices in an effort to accelerate clinical improvement. The hospitals will specifically focus on preventing and reducing the incidence of pressure ulcers to less than one year. “By working together, meeting in real time and virtually, we can share information about how we each perform with other members in the network, enabling us to achieve rapid clinical improvements and provide better care for our patients,” said Mary Catherine Rawls, clinical nurse specialist for surgery and surgical specialties at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. The RAN is sponsored by VHA Inc., a national healthcare alliance based in Irving, Texas. VHA has developed a clinical blueprint to help hospitals prevent or reduce the incidence of pressure ulcers. The blueprint, officials say, consists of proven clinical processes that have yield- ed optimal outcomes at the top hospitals in the VHA network. “VHA’s clinical improvement platform focuses on helping members become leading performers,” said Trent Haywood, MD, chief medical officer at VHA. “Our programs and services will help guide members towards success and improve clinical care across the country.” “VHA’s Rapid Adoption Net- Artromick Understands Mobile Computing work takes the delivery of quality care to the next level and the clinical blueprints VHA has developed serve as the foundation for our hospital to maintain quality going forward,” added Rawls. “Hospitals across the state are under significant pressure from both federal and state insurance programs and private insurers to improve quality, and participation in this effort will help these hospitals meet that mandate,” said Kathryn Hayes-Hallowell, senior director of clinical performance improvement at VHA’s regional office in Portland, Maine. ■ More at healthcareITNews.com e connect: NetWorK 0808 l Artromick understands reliability. It’s about ease-of-use. It’s about That is the foundation upon which MeRcy Continued from page 13 there is more to mobile computing carts than simply mounting a computer to a battery and wheels. It’s about providing an open platform of computing and mobility options that gives your facility choices. there,” Head said. “Communications services are crucial, and as we were evacuating the hospital and transferring patients, Qwest’s technology and employees kept us connected,” Cash said. “It quickly became clear that as our network provider, Qwest shared our priorities,” he said. Throughout the flood, Qwest services have been maintained New! Artromick develops and delivers an advanced line of mobile computing cart solutions to the acute care market. From the trim-line Artromick TX20 WorkStation, to the advanced Artromick TX10 MedServer, to our NEW NX10 compact solution developed to uniquely accommodate laptop computers Artromick offers your IT team a wide selection of next-generation products designed for superior performance. Artromick understands mobile computing, and what it takes to ensure a successful healthcare IT program in your facility. NX10 Mobile Computing WorkStation “It quickly became clear that as our network provider, Qwest shared our priorities.” – Jeff Cash with only isolated outages. “The Internet phone system made it easy to unplug a phone, move it to a new location and plug it back in,” Cash said. “It’s our goal to anticipate as well as meet our customers’ needs, and this is a great example of our efforts to do more than is expected,” said Max Phillips, Qwest state president for Iowa. Mercy operates two data centers that are mirror images of one another, located a little more than two blocks apart on campus. Tape backups are taken offsite daily. Mercy uses Web-based technology from Boston-based PatientKeeper, with its databases that work with the hospital’s system from Medical Information Technology Inc., updating medical records in real time. The vendor was able to access an online copy of the electronic record from a snapshot Mercy provided, leaving Cash and his IT team secure in the knowledge that physicians would have access to patients’ medical records even if hospital systems were forced to shut down. ■ More at healthcareITNews.com e connect: MercY 0808 TX10 IMC TX20 Advancing Healthcare Delivery www.artromick.com e l connect: artroMIcK 0808 800 848 6462 l http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9684 http://www.artromick.com http://HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9680

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Healthcare IT News - August 2008 Contents Closer to IT Bill PHIN or RHIOs? Making Leaps After the Flood Tidal Change Denmark Bound Bridging the Divide Robot That Could Mobile Computing Data Everywhere

Healthcare IT News - August 2008

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