Carefx Collaborates with CA, IBM and Initiate Systems to Deliver eHealth Initiative to North Louisiana

Aetna has donated $500,000 to UC Davis Children's Hospital to expand its pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and telemedicine capabilities throughout Northern California. The UC Davis Children's Hospital PICU treats children with serious injuries, respiratory failure, heart conditions and other life-threatening illnesses. The PICU's survival rates are among the highest in the nation, the planned expansion increases the number of patients the unit can serve at any one time from 16 to 24.

Through the use of enhanced video and Internet capabilities, the hospital's telemedicine program connects the specialists of UC Davis with health-care facilities that do not have access to a full-range of pediatric services. The pediatric critical-care telemedicine program is the first of its kind in the country, providing expert and immediate assistance to acutely ill and injured children in locations far from Sacramento.

"Aetna's support of our Pediatric Intensive Care Unit expansion and our telemedicine program is critical to helping us care for more of our region's most seriously ill and injured children and to sharing our specialty expertise with hospitals throughout the region," said Anthony Philipps, medical director of UC Davis Children's Hospital.

Hays Medical Center , a private, not-for-profit hospital, is using Oracle BPEL Process Manager, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, to connect disparate information systems within its IT infrastructure. With Oracle Fusion Middleware, Hays is creating a service-oriented architecture (SOA) to help reduce development costs and IT management complexity while supplying up-to-date patient information to healthcare providers.

Serving approximately 130,000 citizens in Hays, Kansas, Hays Medical Center developed an extensive set of custom point-to-point interfaces to exchange vital healthcare information, both internally and with its business partners. Hays constructed the interfaces using various technologies, protocols and document standards, including Health Level 7 (HL7) standards for the cross-platform exchange of information within a health organization. Faced with the high cost of managing, maintaining and enhancing a diverse IT environment, Hays Medical needed a more cohesive and less maintenance-intensive way to integrate new and old technologies using open, standards-based protocols.

Hays Medical worked with Oracle Consulting to complete a proof-of-concept that integrates Hays' existing infrastructure, which includes a Meditech Patient Care System module and the GE Vitals 8000 hardware device. The new architecture, consisting of Oracle B2B Engine, Oracle Healthcare Adapter and Oracle BPEL Process Manager, enables reduced development costs and can supply more timely patient information to healthcare providers. For example, nurses and physicians can now capture vital data at the bedside with mobile devices to enable telemetry, allowing Hays to remotely upload the information to pertinent medical and business applications.

"Over the last few years, we have received recognition for our patient care and telemedicine programs," said Alan Wamser, systems analyst, Hays Medical Center. "Oracle SOA applications help us to maintain our commitment to service in these areas by enabling us to bring all of our applications under one umbrella using open, standard protocols. By guiding us through this process, Oracle Consulting played an integral role in helping reduce our costs and enhance our ability to respond quickly to our customers."

SigmaCare has expanded the user base of its long-term care mobile electronic medical records (EMR) system throughout the New York City area. Early field results from nursing homes participating in the New York State Quality of Care Demonstration Project show promise for the adoption of EMR technology and its impact on long-term care. Additional contracts secured outside the project further support the case that EMR adoption in long-term care is gaining momentum in New York.

Supported by a $13.5 million grant made available through the state-funded Demonstration Project, the Quality Care Oversight Committee (QCOC) selected 19 nursing homes (4,167 beds) in the New York metropolitan area to participate in the project. In August 2007, SigmaCare began implementing its mobile EMR system in these facilities, which allows healthcare providers to access resident medical records and document activities, treatments, vital signs and notes at the point of care using handheld and portable devices.

SigmaCare has attained extremely high user adoption rates across the Demonstration Project nursing homes implemented to date. On average, within one week of go-live, Certified Nurse Assistants (CNA) are documenting 98.1 percent of their assignments on time, and Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN) are documenting 99.4 percent of their medication administrations on time.

"SigmaCare provides an easy way for caregivers to document at the point of care and frees up more time to be spent with residents," said Jay Sackman, QCOC Union Member, executive vice president, Nursing Home Division, 1199SEIU. "The system has empowered CNAs by giving them a voice in the care planning process, which has boosted staff morale. As a result, residents and their families are more satisfied with the care they are receiving."

Months before EMR training starts, SigmaCare works with nursing home staff to understand the workflow for each department and customize the product to fit the needs of the facility. Focus groups by discipline are also conducted to introduce the technology and begin to shift the thinking away from a paper- based culture. The intuitive software and unique approach to technology implementation have contributed to the EMR system's high adoption rate.

As part of the Quality of Care Demonstration Project, a landmark study is being conducted in the 19 nursing homes in the New York metropolitan area to discover how healthcare information technology (HIT) affects long-term care. This academic study seeks to examine the technology's impact on workforce retention and recruitment, clinical outcomes, and financial and operational impact to the facilities. Results from the study are due to be released in 2009.

“Completing our CE Mark filing is being on the home stretch toward achieving our goal of commercializing the GlucoTel blood glucose monitoring and diabetes management system,” said Stefan Schraps, CEO of BodyTel. “We’ve now taken all the necessary steps to bring our GlucoTel device to market in Europe and many other countries. Production and distribution channels have been established, and we are prepared to begin shipping immediately after the certification has been awarded. Additionally, ISO Certification and a reviewed Technical File will allow us to submit for Canadian licensing.”

In addition to approvals to sell the GlucoTel in Europe, BodyTel continues to pursue market approvals to distribute the GlucoTel in the US and other countries.

McKesson Releases General Availability for C5 Mobile Clinical Assistant Tablet PC

McKesson has announced general availability for the Motion C5 Mobile Clinical Assistant tablet PC. The announcement comes after months of testing with McKesson's Horizon Clinicals applications, configuration and firmware enhancements, and special arrangements with Motion Computing for unique product, training and support bundles. Developed by Intel Corp. and Motion Computing in collaboration with thousands of clinicians as well as industry-leading companies, the C5 has now proven in multiple implementations to enhance the benefits of information technology for clinicians, and ultimately for patients.

The C5 is a lightweight tablet that integrates durable design elements with point-of-care data and image capture technologies to help physicians, nurses and other clinicians do their job on the move. Recognizing that a mobile platform helps break down barriers some clinical systems impose between caregivers and their patients, McKesson engaged early with Motion Computing and Intel to ensure it could obtain the full benefit of this new technology for its customers. These efforts led to application enhancements specifically for the C5 to ensure effective bar-coding and connection with hospital wireless networks, as well as certification of McKesson's HorizonWP Physician Portal.

McKesson has certified its major Horizon Clinicals applications on the C5. An estimated two million clinicians, including more than 400,000 registered nurses, rely upon these applications to deliver safe, efficient care. Of particular interest to McKesson and its customers is the C5's integrated bar-code scanning capability, which helps drive compliance with bar-code medication administration guidelines to ensure the highest levels of patient safety. Today, McKesson's Horizon Admin-Rx bar-code medication administration solution prevents more than 500,000 medication errors weekly. When combined with the C5 technology that increases caregiver time at the bedside, this provides nurses with a powerful tool to drive improvements in patient care.

Covidien Ltd. and Questra Corp. have announced the global launch of the Valleylab Exchange Software Update System. The first remote update system in the electrosurgical market today, the Valleylab Exchange Software Update System is a method for hospitals to remotely update the software on the ForceTriad energy platform. Hospitals can extend the capabilities of the energy platform and add support for new surgical instruments with this system, which updates software through secure electronic communications via RS-232 ports. They may also conduct updates over the Internet at their facility without needing to send the surgical unit to a center or depot.

By streamlining software delivery, hospitals benefit from increased device availability and a noticeable reduction in depot-based software delivery costs. Previously, with Valleylab products in more than 200 countries, the process of updating the software on a surgical system using depot-based service was more time-consuming and expensive. With the Valleylab Exchange Software Update System, the organization can expedite the delivery of new features and capabilities and ensure that hospitals can maximize future investments in the ForceTriad energy platform.

“Software management plays an increasingly large role in the market success of innovative medical device manufacturers such as Covidien,” said Walt Rossi, vice president of marketing at Questra. “The Questra IDM Application Suite includes Questra SoftwareDirector, which enables manufacturers to deliver new software-based device functionality to customers as soon as it is available. Without it, industry-leading systems like the Valleylab Exchange Software Update System for the ForceTriad energy platform wouldn’t be possible. Software management is the competitive advantage every device manufacturer, regardless of industry, must have today.”

Heyer Medical AG has launched its Advanced Remote Management Services (ARMS). This service provides customers with proactive remote monitoring and maintenance of Heyer equipment while still maintaining strict adherence to network security and regulatory practices.

The technology behind the Heyer’s ARMS is ComBrio Virtual Service Infrastructure (VSI), a virtual, secure IP infrastructure used for the continuous transport of real-time remote device monitoring data and on-demand access for remote device management. Initially being offered on its new life-critical NARKOMAT+ anesthesia + and Maris III units, ARMS will enable Heyer service personnel to address systems issues before they reach a critical state and fully diagnose system failures prior to on-site personnel deployment. This guarantees that the right services and part replacement are performed the first time, resulting in reduced downtime and rapid equipment resolution.

ARMS gives Heyer services personnel access to a unified, secure and accountable platform to efficiently and remotely monitor Narkomat+ and Maris III units across the globe. This enables product experts to perform a variety of proactive services including real-time device monitoring, performance diagnostics, alarm and alert collection, preventative maintenance, calibration, remediation and repair.

“The equipment we offer our customers is used for critical life support where high performance and availability is vital,” said Klaus Schickhaus, president of Heyer Medical AG. “The introduction of our ARMS will maximize uptime assuring customers that their systems will be operational when they need them most. ComBrio’s VSI provides us with a cost efficient and highly scalable method of gaining visibility and on-demand access to all Heyer devices at our customer sites. In short, it provides increased safety at reduced cost. We believe our health provider customers will embrace it because the infrastructure does not violate federal government regulations, risk patient privacy protection or require any modifications to customer network security found with dial-up or VPN based remote access methods.”