Cerner system extended to ambulatory clinics

TORONTO and KANSAS CITY, Mo. –  Cerner Corp. has announced successful deployments of the Ambulatory EMR Project in three Ontario hospitals. The deployments were supported by Canada Health Infoway to improve quality and accessibility of clinical documentation across the inpatient and outpatient venues of care.

Cerner worked with Grey Bruce Health Services(GBHS), Toronto East General Hospital (TEGH) and North York General Hospital (NYGH) to extend the Cerner Hospital Information System (HIS)to select Ambulatory (outpatient) Clinics.

The key business driver for the Ambulatory EMR Project is to improve the quality and availability of clinical documentation across the inpatient and outpatient venues of care, while reducing costs of transcription and document scanning.

Cerner Millennium PowerChart Ambulatory was implemented in the Endoscopy clinic at NYGH, an Endocrinology clinic at TEGH and a Cystoscopy clinic at GBHS, establishing standardized clinical documentation templates for the targeted Ambulatory areas and allowing the three hospitals to share these clinical tools.

Following this initial phase of the project, the content developed will be shared with the other hospitals, which will implement the solution across additional clinics in all three hospitals.

“This integration between inpatient and outpatient systems will provide a seamless experience for patients and clinicians, particularly with the large volume of Ontario residents who use outpatient hospital care,” said, Jim Shave, president, Cerner Canada.

The concept of having a common Hospital Information System (HIS) vendor– Cerner – participate in this type of project at this level is a first for Ontario. The project leverages collective experience from the three participating hospitals, building on the established Cerner Millennium platform.

The project is expected to derive the following benefits:

• Improved coordination of patient identification across locations;
• Real-time access to cross-disciplinary patient results and information, supporting timely clinical decision-making, health planning and promoting optimum outcomes for patients, providers, and plans;
• Simultaneous access to patient charts from any location at any time, eliminating chart pulls and decreasing workflow bottlenecks that may occur with a paper chart;
• True outcomes monitoring through guideline-driven, problem-focused care documentation that creates codified progress notes available for ad hoc or expert system analysis, improving the quality of care; and
• Time saved by enabling documentation created as a by-product of the office workflow, reducing the need for transcription and review of progress notes.

About Cerner

Cerner is contributing to the systemic change of health and care delivery. For more than 30 years Cerner has been executing its vision to make health care safer and more efficient. We started with the foundation of digitizing paper processes and now offer the most comprehensive array of information software, professional services, medical device integration, remote hosting and employer health and wellness services. Cerner systems are used by everyone from individual consumers, to single-doctor practices, hospitals, employers and entire countries. Taking what we’ve learned over more than three decades, Cerner is building on the knowledge that is in the system to support evidence-based clinical decisions, prevent medical errors and empower patients in their care. Cerner(R) solutions are licensed by approximately 10,000 facilities around the world, including more than 2,700 hospitals; 4,150 physician practices; 45,000 physicians; 550 ambulatory facilities, such as laboratories, ambulatory centers, behavioral health centers, cardiac facilities, radiology clinics and surgery centers; 800 home health facilities; 45 employer sites and 1,750 retail pharmacies.

About Grey Bruce Health Services

Grey Bruce Health Services operates six hospitals serving a population of approximately 160,000. The Owen Sound hospital is the regional facility and offers a full range specialty services for residents across the region, including complex surgeries, total joint replacements, oncology services, mental health services, MRI and CT scans. Our rural hospitals in Lion’s Head, Markdale, Meaford, Southampton and Wiarton offer a wide range of primary and ambulatory care services. Across the corporation, we see close to 100,000 emergency room visits per year. We are proud to offer Quality Care, Close to Home, with some of the shortest wait times in the province.

About Toronto East General Hospital

TEGH has been proudly serving the community of East Toronto since 1929,when it opened its doors as a 110-bed general hospital. Over the years, the hospital has continually renewed its commitment to the community it serves. Today, TEGH is a large, urban, full-service community teaching hospital, providing comprehensive care to a diverse population of400,000, representing over 40 cultural and linguistic groups. TEGH’s inpatient beds are comprised of acute care, rehabilitation, complex continuing care and mental health beds. Annually we admit 20,000acute care inpatients, deliver 3,500 babies, have over 60,000 emergency visits and provide service to over 200,000 outpatients. This is accomplished with the help of 2,500 employees, 413 physicians and midwives and over 500 adult and student volunteers. TEGH was also included in the “Best Workplaces List” in 2010 by the Great Place to Work Institute Canada. In addition to the services offered as a full service general hospital, TEGH has specialty programs and services including:

• The only Progressive Weaning Centre in Ontario; declared a Provincial Centre of Excellence in 2007.
• A Level 1 Centre of Excellence for Thoracic Surgery through partnerships with Sunnybrook, North York General and Royal Victoria Hospitals.
• The regional Paediatric Centre for South East Toronto providing the high standards of care established by the Child Health Network. Our Special Care Level 2 Nursery is specifically designed to care for fragile babies who require special care and monitoring.

About North York General Hospital

North York General, affiliated with the University of Toronto, is one of Canada’s leading community academic hospitals. We offer our culturally diverse community a wide range of acute care, ambulatory and long-term care services across three sites. North York General takes a purposeful approach to meeting and exceeding patient’s expectations. The patient experience is at the heart of everything we do.