Medsphere Completes EHR Deployment At Two West Virginia Hospitals Spanning Acute, Long-term, Behavioral Health & Clinic Settings
Aliso Viejo, CA - Medsphere Systems Corporation recently announced the successful deployment of its OpenVista electronic health record (EHR) platform at Welch Community Hospital and Mildred Mitchell-Bateman Hospital in West Virginia, two of seven state-operated hospitals that will be equipped with OpenVista under a contract to improve West Virginia's healthcare system. The implementations span acute, long-term, behavioral and clinic environments, with a single database enabling physicians to access patient data across all facilities.
Welch Community Hospital in the town of Welch is a 124-bed acute and long-term care facility that offers walk-in and emergency health services in the same facility. Bateman Hospital in Huntington is a 105-bed acute care psychiatric facility. Together with William R. Sharpe Jr. Hospital, a 150-bed acute care psychiatric facility in Weston that began using OpenVista earlier this year, the three facilities become the first in the state to use the Medsphere platform to electronically record and retrieve patient information.
"With these latest deployments in West Virginia, Medsphere has achieved three milestones: implementation across disparate kinds of healthcare facilities, proven integration with Keane financials, and development of a single state-maintained database creating a continuous medical record for each patient treated at state-run facilities," said Medsphere CEO Michael J. Doyle. "This proves the adaptability of OpenVista to diverse needs, demonstrates our ability to provide a total clinical and financial platform through our partnership with Keane, and establishes a methodology for future OpenVista implementations."
All three implementations include integration of Medsphere's OpenVista, the leading commercial version of the Open Source VistA EHR developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), with either Keane Patcom or Keane NetSolutions revenue cycle management applications for acute and long-term care environments, respectively. OpenVista has replaced the hospitals' paper-based patient records, while Keane has replaced the facilities' legacy accounts receivable, patient billing, and accounting systems.
"OpenVista is already improving patient care in our facility a variety of ways, from a reduced risk of medication errors to one-touch access to patient information that eliminates the need to sift through the paper chart," said Mary Beth Carlisle, CEO, Mildred Mitchell-Bateman Hospital. "Our staff has embraced both OpenVista's Computerized Patient Record System and Bar Code Medication Administration, and we have fully transitioned to the new system."
"We have a complex environment where patients frequently move between our acute care, long-term care and clinic facilities, and we need to be able to track these patients through the system without redundant data entry or multiple charts," said Walt Garrett, CEO of Welch Community Hospital. "We have just gone live with OpenVista but over the long term we expect the application will help us achieve these goals, dramatically reduce if not eliminate paper, and enjoy all of the other benefits of an electronic health record."
Under the contract with West Virginia's Department of Health and Human Resources, OpenVista and Keane solutions will also be implemented at Hopemont Hospital (Hopemont), Lakin Hospital (Lakin), John Manchin Sr. Health Care Center (Fairmont) and Pinecrest Hospital (Beckley) in 2008. A newer transitional living facility on the same property as Sharpe Hospital is expected to be added when funding is approved.
OpenVista is an economically sustainable and integrated suite of clinical and administrative applications that can be deployed across acute, ambulatory and long-term care environments. Together, these systems provide an integrated view of orders, test results and medications for a given patient, which strengthens clinical decision support, improves patient safety and healthcare outcomes, and reduces costs. Other benefits include HIPAA compliance improvement, accreditation standards compliance, and reporting standardization.
The Medsphere EHR platform has been successfully implemented at Midland Memorial Hospital in Midland, Texas, for over a year and was recently selected by Century City Doctors Hospital in Los Angeles. OpenVista is also currently being deployed at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn and Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County in Rock Springs, Wyoming.
SOURCE: Medsphere Systems Corporation