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GE Healthcare Showcases Powerful Vendor Neutral Archive at HIMSS

Centricity Clinical Archive Aggregates Images, Documents, Helps Doctors Make More Informed Decisions

NEW ORLEANS – March 4, 2013 — Many attendees at this week’s annual meeting of the Health Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) are looking for a vendor neutral archive (VNA) solution that helps clinicians make more rapid and more informed treatment decisions and helps reduce costs by unifying patient images and documents across multiple vendor systems, departments, specialties, and locations. They want a standards-based solution that is easily accessible from the EMR and via the web through a non-diagnostic zero footprint viewer. In Centricity* Clinical Archive from GE Healthcare, they’ve found it.

Centricity Clinical Archive consists of a suite of products and services designed to provide an end-to-end solution. Unlike vendor neutral archives that only support departmental DICOM consolidation, Centricity Clinical Archive helps healthcare systems streamline enterprise-level and community-wide collaboration with performance through a breadth of interoperability standards, including IHE-XDS, HL7, and DICOM. Rather than forcing customers to custom-build their own solution with the complexity of multiple vendor relationships, GE Healthcare delivers a “360° Go-Live Experience.” It enables all solution planning, implementation, service, and management through a single team of clinical and IT experts.

GE Healthcare IT defines VNA as a Four Level Model for Medical Information Management

“There is a lot of buzz out there about Vendor Neutral Archives,” said Mike Jackman, senior vice president and general manager of GE Healthcare IT. “At GE Healthcare IT, we define it as a 4 level model for medical information management, which helps connect and share information across multiple departments, specialties, locations and vendors, through a breadth of interoperability standards. GE’s VNA solution, Centricity Clinical Archive, i enables this effective collaboration bringing benefits across the organization to the IT departments, the physician and ultimately the patient. ”

The core offering of Centricity Clinical Archive provides a multi-ology, multi-site imaging content repository that enables consolidation of IT infrastructure for archiving and managing medical images and associated documents using industry standards (DICOM, IHE-XDS). Its enterprise-wide non-diagnostic zero footprint viewer and IHE-XDS registry provide anywhere, anytime/near instant access to a patient clinical record when there is an internet connection available. A master patient index links patient records across network boundaries, while the messaging interface engine combines workflow systems like HIS and RIS to update an information repository and keep information consistent across systems. It also equips IT administrators with a choice of virtual server deployment to save data center space, disaster recovery by connecting to cloud storage, and high reliability with standardized configurations.

Since Centricity Clinical Archive is a solution offering, services play an important role in completing the picture. The core services include solution consulting, which assesses the current status and future needs including number and type of departmental systems, IT infrastructure, and processes in order to provide recommendations for long term sustainable data management and sharing strategy. Implementation services help interface existing departmental IT systems from various vendors with the central clinical information archive, helping to ensure regular consolidation of information (DICOM and non-DICOM). One-time data migration services link existing historical data from the departmental systems to the central information archive, while professional project management services oversee the overall implementation to ensure on-time delivery and help the customer exceed their quality goals.

SWODIN built on VNA Platform – Benefitting from Increased Clinician Productivity.

In Canada, the Southwestern Ontario Digital Imaging Network (SWODIN) is built on the highly scalable and vendor neutral archive platform of the Centricity Clinical Archive solution plus other web-enabled components. SWODIN is a highly advanced technology and infrastructure network that connects radiologists, referring physicians and specialists at hospitals across southwestern Ontario, allowing them to rapidly access, exchange and store diagnostic images and reports from multiple PACS systems that use many different vendor platforms through a unified, web-based interface.

Today, SWODIN is storing 3.2 million exams every year from 62 hospitals using seven different vendors’ PACS systems. Says Dave Veeneman, PACS/DI-r Manager, London Health Sciences Centre, “The system provides a single point of access to a single patient jacket, where clinicians can see all the exams that a patient has had across Southwestern Ontario. We plan to enhance the system for imaging beyond radiology using industry standards like IHE-XDS”. Glen Kearns, IVP of Technology Services, St. Josephs Health and London Health Sciences, added, “The economic benefits most directly tied to a Diagnostic Imaging repository, beyond IT simplification and cost reductions, include increased clinician productivity that translates into two positive impacts for our patients: faster access to imaging services and more time for our clinicians to collaborate on complex cases.”

IDC Health Insights Anticipates VNA Spending to Grow in 2013

“Vendor neutral archives provide a strong opportunity for providers who want to centralize and aggregate clinical image repositories, optimize storage infrastructure and add agility and flexibility to their PACS environment. The industry is turning to vendor neutral archives to take advantage of economies of scale in storage, and make clinical images available throughout the enterprise, or to accountable delivery partners in the community, with centralized data management,” said Judy Hanover, Research Director for IDC Health Insights. “We anticipate vendor neutral archive spending will continue to grow in 2013, as more providers take advantage of this technology.

*Registered trademark of General Electric Corp.

About GE Healthcare:
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services to meet the demand for increased access, enhanced quality and more affordable healthcare around the world. GE (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter – great people and technologies taking on tough challenges. From medical imaging, software & IT, patient monitoring and diagnostics to drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies and performance improvement solutions, GE Healthcare helps medical professionals deliver great healthcare to their patients.

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March 4, 2013 I Written By John

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.

Filed Under: EMR

GE Healthcare Announces Development of New Applications for Caradigm Intelligence Platform

GE Healthcare will demonstrate application prototypes in Caradigm booth at HIMSS 2013 Conference

NEW ORLEANS – March 4, 2013 – At the HIMSS 2013 Conference and Exhibition today, GE Healthcare announced it is developing two new applications for the Caradigm Intelligence Platform. With these new applications, healthcare organizations will be able to gain near real-time visibility into the operations of their emergency rooms and their bed management processes, thus enabling these organizations to better utilize their resources to improve the quality of care delivery while reducing cost.

GE Healthcare will demonstrate prototypes of these new applications in the Caradigm booth at the HIMSS 2013 Conference. The two applications that GE Healthcare is developing for the Caradigm Intelligence Platform are:

GE Healthcare Guided Analytics– An application that combines data visualization with domain expertise to help healthcare organizations analyze and manage emergency department visits. By providing situational awareness and identifying causal factors, Guided Analytics reveals insights that can be used to improve care transitions and care delivery effectiveness.

GE Healthcare AutoBed – An operations decision support application that helps optimize in-patient bed assignments so that resources are used most efficiently and effectively. Driven by a sophisticated yet customizable many-to-many optimization algorithm, the application helps bed managers assign the right bed to the right patient at the right time.

Commercial availability for these two applications will be announced at a later date.

Caradigm is a 50-50 joint venture formed by GE Healthcare and Microsoft Corp. in June 2012. The Caradigm Intelligence Platform is a flexible, cloud-based solution designed to help healthcare organizations improve quality, optimize revenue and cost, and manage population health through the use of near real-time data.

“When we formed Caradigm last year, we had a vision of leveraging strong technology and deep healthcare expertise to drive systemic change for healthcare,” said Jan De Witte, president and CEO of GE Healthcare IT and Performance Solutions, and a member of Caradigm’s Board of Directors. “Our development of these two applications is a strong statement of GE Healthcare’s commitment to make Caradigm successful. We expect many other vendors in the healthcare industry to follow our lead and develop applications that leverage the powerful capabilities of the Caradigm Intelligence Platform.”

The Caradigm Intelligence Platform and select applications are available now, with additional applications expected to become available beginning summer 2013.

At booth 1323, Caradigm is also demonstrating the full complement of its integrated health IT solutions including:

· Caradigm Health Information Exchange – a secure, standards-based infrastructure that connects clinical data from disparate systems to provide near real-time access to comprehensive patient records at the point of care, helping support decisions, drive greater productivity, reduce redundancy and optimize outcomes.

· Caradigm’s comprehensive suite of Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions for healthcare is designed to help providers manage the complete lifecycle of user access to applications and data—enabling caregivers to stay focused on patients rather than technology, improving the workload and efficiency of IT and security professionals, and helping the organization to improve patient safety and more easily comply with security and privacy regulations.

“Our solutions address the full spectrum of needs for organizations striving to achieve integrated, accountable care,” said Brandon Savage, Chief Medical Officer, Caradigm. “This means not just connecting data across boundaries but allowing extended care teams to collaborate effectively across the continuum to improve the outcomes of individual patients and populations.”

About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services to meet the demand for increased access, enhanced quality and more affordable healthcare around the world. GE (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter – great people and technologies taking on tough challenges. From medical imaging, software & IT, patient monitoring and diagnostics to drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies and performance improvement solutions, GE Healthcare helps medical professionals deliver great healthcare to their patients.

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I Written By John

Filed Under: EMR

Tags:Brandon Savage Caradigm Health Information Exchange Caradigm Intelligence Platform GE Healthcare GE Healthcare AutoBed GE Healthcare Guided Analytics HIMSS 2013 conference Jan De Witte Microsoft Corp. NYSE: GE

Virtua Selects Tribridge Consulting Services for Accountable Care Organization Initiative

TAMPA, Fla. (March 1, 2013) –Tribridge, a leading U.S.-based IT services and business consulting firm, today announced that Marlton, N.J.-based Virtua, the largest healthcare provider in southern New Jersey, has selected Tribridge consulting services to assist with administrative functions of its care coordination program, including its Accountable Care Organization (ACO). Built on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform, this custom business solution will support enrollment, patient consent management, secure messaging and other administrative functions, as well as provide a platform for clinical information from other technology systems to be available to Virtua’s care coordinators in a unified environment.

“Our ACO initiative is enabled by several technologies working together in new ways,” said Al Campanella, executive vice president of strategic business growth and analytics at Virtua. “We chose Tribridge because they have a vision for coordinating care that aligns with ours, as well as deep experience with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and they are partnering well with our other technology vendors.”

Tribridge’s consulting practice helps healthcare providers address the various technology capabilities they need to coordinate care among various care providers. By leveraging Virtua’s existing data warehouses, Tribridge is adapting the Dynamics CRM platform to serve as the care manager’s desktop and offers powerful tools for identifying, engaging and communicating with program candidates and participants.

“Just as corporations became more customer-centric in the last two decades, healthcare providers need to become a lot more patient-centric,” said Damon Auer, vice president of the Healthcare Practice at Tribridge. “It is no longer acceptable to operate in a provider-focused, fee-for-volume healthcare model. The Accountable Care challenge for providers to engage patients, personalize and manage individual care plans, and effectively coordinate care outside of their physical facilities requires a change in mindset and organizational structure that enables systems for quality care.”

Members of Tribridge’s consulting practice will be available at the HIMSS13 Annual Conference and Exhibition at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, March 3-7. Visit the Microsoft booth #1127 in the Expo Center for specific information, or to schedule a private demonstration, please contact Linda Athans at linda.athans@tribridge.com or 813-287-8887, x1212.

About Tribridge

Founded in 1998, Tribridge is a technology services firm specializing in business applications and cloud solutions, providing expertise for where you’re headed. Specializing in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and ERP, SharePoint and other essential productivity solutions, the firm’s more than 400 professionals capitalize on an award-winning combination of industry expertise, technical proficiency and proven service methodology to create an exceptional customer experience and promote a solid return on IT investments. Tribridge serves over 3,500 companies representing a variety of industries throughout the U.S. www.tribridge.com

About Virtua

As one of New Jersey’s largest health systems, Virtua helps people be well, get well and stay well through a comprehensive range of health care services. Services are delivered through three health and wellness centers, three fitness centers, four acute care hospitals, primary and specialty physician practices with more than 240 physicians, urgent care centers, seven ambulatory surgery centers, home health services, two long-term care and rehabilitation centers, 12 paramedic units and a wide range of outpatient services. A leader in maternal and child health services, Virtua delivers almost 8,000 babies a year. Virtua also provides employment and wellness services to 1,700 businesses and corporations. An innovator in clinical and information technology such as electronic medical records, Virtua is recognized for its ground-breaking partnerships with GE Healthcare, Alere, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the Fox Chase Cancer Center. It is the official orthopedic provider for the Philadelphia Flyers. Virtua employs more than 8,400 people and has been honored as the #1 Best Place to Work in the Delaware Valley for seven consecutive years. It is the recipient of the Consumer Choice Award from the National Research Corporation. For more information, visit www.virtua.org or www.virtuabroadcastnetwork.org.

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I Written By John

Filed Under: Healthcare

Tags:accountable care organization Al Campanella Alere Children's Hospital of Philadelphia cloud solutions Damon Auer GE Healthcare HIMSS13 Microsoft Dynamics CRM Philadelphia Flyers the Fox Chase Cancer Center Tribridge Virtua

et Real Health Proud to Partner with Caradigm on New Cloud-based Platform and Applications

Rockville, Maryland — Get Real Health is proud to announce a formalized and updated partnership with Caradigm, the joint venture between GE Healthcare and Microsoft, at the HIMSS13 annual meeting in New Orleans. This partnership brings an integrated offering to Caradigm customers that includes Get Real Health’s award-winning InstantPHR™ comprehensive patient engagement platform with the Caradigm Intelligence Platform (CIP), the next generation of Amalga. Caradigm’s flexible, cloud-based intelligence platform and applications help healthcare organizations improve care quality, optimize revenue and cost, and manage population health through the use of near real-time data.

Get Real Health’s InstantPHR™ is one of the applications that runs on the Caradigm Intelligence Platform, specifically to target population health management. InstantPHR™ provides a comprehensive patient engagement application designed to help healthcare providers reduce non-reimbursable readmissions by improving patient care treatment compliance and provide a means to track patient health metrics.

“I continue to be impressed with Caradigm’s team, their products and their healthcare management vision,” said Get Real Health CEO Mark Heaney. “I see our relationship not only as an extremely valuable asset, but as an opportunity to leverage our synergies and amplify our companies’ effectiveness in improving the healthcare system for all stakeholders.”

Toward that end, the Caradigm Intelligence Platform represents the next generation of its Amalga product. This new iteration introduces features designed to help organizations rapidly address big challenges, such as readmissions, clinical surveillance or Meaningful Use, while lowering the total cost of ownership.

Moreover, CIP offers a host of benefits that, with its inclusion of InstantPHR™, make it an especially powerful solution — enabling patient-directed care plans, tailored patient educational resources, alerts and reminders, health journaling, secured messaging, plus data sharing with family members and other caregivers. Designed to fit active, multiple-device lifestyles, these capabilities are available to patients and healthcare providers on all PC and mobile browsers.

“The Caradigm Intelligence Platform is designed to accelerate the delivery of new applications that solve tough and pervasive problems facing the industry,” said Brandon Savage, Chief Medical Officer, Caradigm. “Get Real’s InstantPHR product is an example of this innovation and will help providers more easily connect with patients and improve their experience while meeting Meaningful Use objectives for patient engagement.”

The Caradigm Intelligence Platform—along with Get Real Health’s InstantPHR™ product—will be demonstrated at booth #1323 during HIMSS 2013 in New Orleans. The Platform and select applications (including Get Real Health’s InstantPHR™) are commercially available immediately.

About Caradigm

Formed by GE Healthcare and Microsoft Corp. in June 2012, Caradigm is a 50–50 joint venture focused on enabling health systems and payers to drive continuous improvements in care. Caradigm software helps healthcare professionals across care settings to use data to gain critical insights, collaborate with each other and with patients, and to develop and implement innovative care solutions. Caradigm products—and applications built by partners to extend these products—give clinicians, administrators and finance teams timely access to key information, helping them to take steps to solve some of healthcare’s biggest challenges, including chronic disease management, preventable hospital readmissions and hospital acquired conditions, and to advance integrated, accountable care. Caradigm is headquartered in Bellevue, Wash. For more information about the company, visit http://www.caradigm.com.

About Get Real Health

Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Rockville, Maryland, Get Real Health is an award-winning global health technology pioneer. We specialize in developing consumer healthcare solutions, personal health record application development, and connected health consulting. A Microsoft Technology Partner, Get Real has a diverse global customer base and is at the forefront of web and mobile-based health technology innovation. Visit: www.getrealhealth.com.

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March 1, 2013 I Written By John

Filed Under: EMR

Tags:Amalga Brandon Savage Caradigm Caradigm Intelligence Platform cloud-based GE Healthcare GE Healthcare and Microsoft Get Real Health Get Real Health’s InstantPHR Healthcare Organizations HIMSS13 InstantPHR Mark Heaney Meaningful Use Microsoft

North American Connectathon 2013 Provides Testing Ground for Meaningful Use Stage 2 Requirements

CHICAGO – (February 27, 2013) In an effort to advance interoperability in the U.S., IHE USA and the Health Story Project offered Health Level Seven’s (HL7) Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture® (C-CDA) standard as part of the testing process at the IHE North American (NA) Connectathon 2013. When implemented into electronic health records (EHRs) and health information exchanges (HIEs), HL7’s C-CDA contributes a critical component of a patient’s medical record, including the physician’s progress notes, discharge summaries, and other clinical documents. U.S. physicians create over a billion clinical notes each year. These notes contain most of a patient’s clinical records, and most EHRs are not capable of integrating this type of data into their systems.

“Eighteen vendors registered to test 27 systems for C-CDA – including, a diverse group of EHR, document imaging and HIE vendors. After years of working with EHR and HIE vendors and encouraging acceptance of C-CDA document types, Health Story members are thrilled about the potential uptake of C-CDA and its role in contributing to comprehensive electronic patient stories,” said Joy Kuhl, Executive Director of the Health Story Project.

IHE USA and Health Story Project are excited to announce that 18 companies earned a passing test score for C-CDA testing at the NA Connectathon 2013, gaining a competitive advantage in meeting Meaningful Use Stage 2 requirements for adoption of C-CDA.

Successful Consolidated CDA Test Participants:

Allscripts

athenahealth

CareEvolution, Inc.

Certify Data Systems

Corepoint Health

Epic

GE Healthcare

Greenway Medical Technologies

Iatric Systems, Inc.

ICT Health

InterSystems

Notable Solutions, Inc.

Nuance Communications

Mirth Corporation

Nextgen Healthcare

Oracle America

VitalHealth Software

Vitera Healthcare Solutions

Please visit IHE USA to learn more about Consolidated CDA, the NA Connectathon, and Consolidated CDA test participants.

About IHE USA

IHE USA (www.iheusa.org) is a not-for-profit organization established in 2010 that operates as a deployment committee of IHE International®. The mission of IHE USA is to drive adoption of standards-based interoperability to improve patient care through innovation, standards profiling, testing, education and collaboration. IHE USA improves the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare delivery by supporting the deployment of standards-based electronic health record systems, facilitating the exchange of health information among care providers, both within the enterprise and across care settings, and enabling local, regional and nationwide health information networks in the United States, all in a manner consistent with participation in IHE International, Inc.

About Health Story

The Health Story Project was founded five years ago by the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI), the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the Clinical Documentation Industry Association, Lantana Consulting Group, and M*Modal. It is now a collaborative of over two dozen healthcare vendors, providers and associations. Health Story accelerated development of HL7 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) Implementation Guides for common types of clinical documents, bringing them through the HL7 ballot process and promoting their adoption within the industry. Over the previous five years, the initiative produced the first set of national data standards for clinical documents – use of which supports requirements for Meaningful Use of EHRs. The Health Story vision is for complete patient stories to be available in electronic medical records. You can see Health Story in action at HIMSS13 in the Interoperability Showcase.

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February 27, 2013 I Written By John

Filed Under: EMR

HIMSS Innovation Center Advances Interoperability

CLEVELAND (February 19, 2013) – Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald announced earlier today that the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, known as HIMSS, will be leasing on the fourth level 12,500 square feet for its Innovation Center, a unique and dynamic testing, demonstration, exhibition, and educational facility, with another 12,500 square feet of exhibition space, of the newly-named Global Center for Health Innovation (formerly the Cleveland Medical Mart). HIMSS also plans to double the size of the exhibition space by 2016. County Executive FitzGerald made the announcement during his annual “State of the County” address at the City Club in downtown Cleveland.

HIMSS is a cause-based, not-for-profit organization focused on improving healthcare through the best use of information technology and management systems. HIMSS, with its related organizations are headquartered in Chicago with additional offices in the United States, Europe and Asia, represents more than 52,000 individual members, of which more than two-thirds work in healthcare provider, governmental and not-for-profit organizations.

The HIMSS Innovation Center will provide ongoing services for health delivery organizations and health IT companies, along with exhibitions, educational programming, and consumer-oriented applications. In addition, the year-round interoperability showcase and exhibition space will further validate functionality for new and developing products using standards and customized testing in both a physical and virtual demonstration environment.

“We look forward to the opening in October of the HIMSS Innovation Center in the Global Center for Health Innovation. As we continue to build on our more than 14 years of leadership in and support of achieving seamless, secure exchange of electronic health information, our focus at HIMSS continues on interoperability, standards and harmonization initiatives, here in Cleveland and across the globe,” says H. Stephen Lieber, CAE, HIMSS President and CEO.

With its scenario-based setting, the HIMSS Health IT Ecosystem will provide a fully operational, multi-facility environment populated with simulated patient demographic, clinical and financial data. The health and healthcare communities will be able to plug into this environment and both test and demonstrate a specific product’s interoperability capabilities.

At the HIMSS Healthcare Technology Showcase, the health and healthcare community will find opportunities to participate in long-lasting exhibits themed around harnessing the power of IT in vital issues such as mobile devices, consumer-driven healthcare, and evidence-based care. The themed exhibits will show the value of the participating technologies in specific-use cases of the highlighted theme and serve as a point of collaboration.

HIMSS testing and educational services will be available virtually worldwide. The HIMSS space in the Global Center for Health Innovation will become a worldwide hub for health and health IT testing, demonstration, exhibitions, and consumer products, including the latest breakthroughs in mobile health devices and distance medicine technology.

The HIMSS educational offerings will leverage a variety of interoperability platforms, partner with other leaders in the facility, and create a full menu of educational programming for health and healthcare sector learners and conferences housed in the adjacent Cleveland Convention Center.

The newly renamed Global Center for Health Innovation more accurately reflects the purpose and mission of the facility and a natural transition in the business evolution of the Cleveland Medical Mart. The Global Center for Health Innovation is the only facility in the world that displays the future of health and healthcare, the majority of the participating partners have global reach and reputation, and the participating partners will draw international visitors to their spaces within the Global Center.

HIMSS exemplifies the global reach of the facility, as the sector’s leader in health IT with offices around the world in Chicago, Brussels, Singapore, Berlin, and Leipzig. The Healthcare Technology Showcase, much like the Interoperability Showcases held at HIMSS conferences, will enable solutions providers to work collaboratively instead of competitively to demonstrate and solve real-world healthcare delivery problems. HIMSS joins Cleveland Clinic, GE Healthcare, Johnson Controls, University Hospitals and Philips Healthcare as charter tenants in the Global Center.

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February 22, 2013 I Written By John

Filed Under: Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR Healthcare Healthcare IT

Tags:Cleveland Clinic Cuyahoga County Ed FitzGerald GE Healthcare Global Center for Health Innovation H. STEPHEN LIEBER Healthcare Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society HIMSS HIMSS Health IT Ecosystem HIMSS Healthcare Technology Showcase HIMSS Innovation Center information technology and management systems Innovation Center Johnson Controls Philips Healthcare University Hospitals

Providers Say Agfa Healthcare Has Room for Improvement as an Imaging Partner

OREM, Utah – Wednesday, February 20, 2013 – Agfa HealthCare’s stated core belief is centered around helping imaging providers succeed, yet a majority of U.S. clients interviewed by KLAS report gaps in reaching desired results when using Agfa as a vendor. The reasons and other details can be found in the new KLAS vendor-specific report Agfa HealthCare Study 2013: Partnering with Agfa in 2013.

Throughout 2012, KLAS published a series of reports focused on imaging solutions. These reports, as well as discussions with providers, revealed that Agfa was losing client loyalty in some areas due to weak customer relations. In order to further understand this situation, KLAS launched a performance study to specifically evaluate Agfa. With the exception of x-ray equipment and speech recognition systems, Agfa receives second-tier scores across their suite of imaging solutions. However, as provider concerns grow around Agfa as a partner, there is a clear opportunity for Agfa-and other imaging vendors-to improve in helping their clients succeed.

Even with the challenges Agfa faces, they are showing early signs of success and leadership in several aspects of enterprise imaging. One of Agfa’s strengths is scaling IMPAX PACS in large, complex provider organizations. Scalability is an attribute that is important to some providers.

“This report is aimed not just at measuring how well Agfa is currently delivering synergistic solutions to their clients,” says Matt Terry, research director at KLAS and report author, “but its purpose is to also look into user perceptions and provider confidence in moving forward with Agfa.”

Other imaging vendors mentioned in this report include Merge Healthcare, McKesson, FUJIFILM, GE Healthcare, Philips, Carestream, and Siemens. To learn more about this vendor-specific report, the strategic imaging partners in the study, and the related reports published in 2012, providers and vendors can check out the full report, Agfa HealthCare Study 2013: Partnering with Agfa in 2013. This is a vendor-specific report and is available to healthcare providers at a significant discount. To purchase, visit www.KLASresearch.com/KLASreports.

About KLAS
KLAS is a research firm on a global mission to improve healthcare delivery by enabling providers to be heard and to be counted. Working with thousands of healthcare executives and clinicians, KLAS gathers data on software, services, medical equipment, and infrastructure systems to deliver timely reports, trends, and statistical overviews. The research directly represents the provider voice and acts as a catalyst for improving vendor performance. KLAS was founded in 1996, and KLAS’ staff and advisory board members average 25 years of healthcare information technology experience. For more information, go to www.KLASresearch.com, email marketing@KLASresearch.com, or call 1-800-920-4109 to speak with a KLAS representative. Follow KLAS on Twitter @KLASresearch.

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February 18, 2013 I Written By John

Filed Under: Healthcare Healthcare IT Healthcare IT Vendor

Tags:Agfa Agfa Healthcare Carestream FUJIFILM GE Healthcare gfa HealthCare Study 2013: Partnering with Agfa in 2013. imaging solutions imaging vendors KLAS Matt Terry McKesson Merge Healthcare Philips Siemens

GE Healthcare Announces Centricity Practice Solution 11

New Ambulatory EMR Offering Simplifies ICD-10 Readiness with One-click Problem Entry and Mapping to ICD-9 Codes

BARRINGTON, Ill. – Jan 24, 2013 – GE Healthcare today announced the release of Centricity* Practice Solution 11, the next generation of its fully integrated EMR and Practice Management solution. With a dynamic search engine and one-click problem entry, Centricity Practice Solution simplifies the data entry required for medical providers to comply with new the ICD-10 coding requirements and reduces the number of clicks required to enter a problem by 75%. Combined with the ability to customize workflows, this new solution will help ambulatory practices adjust to healthcare reform and embrace new care models.

With the mandatory transition to ICD-10 codes in October 2014, US providers face a daunting challenge. While the new coding system has many benefits, including measuring the quality, safety and efficacy of care, it multiplies the ICD-9 dataset by a factor of five and will require a significant amount of training and effort for providers to successfully navigate. With today’s release of Centricity Practice Solution 11, GE Healthcare helps ease the transition to ICD-10 for its customers.

“I’m impressed with the mapping functionality between ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes,” said Dr. Jay Prakash from South Atlanta Medical Clinic. “When our practice has to go through the coding transition next year, the bulk of the learning curve will already be behind us. We are already making use of the one-click problem entry and the search functionality is exceptional.”

Both ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes come pre-loaded in the patient chart, and are delivered through a dynamic search engine, enabling providers to efficiently assign the diagnosis code. Additionally, the search engine uses an algorithm to both predict common search terms and map ICD-9 codes to ICD-10 codes using guidance from CMS where there is a one-to-one correlation, so providers can see the links between the two systems. Problem codes are fully searchable and, once the provider selects the appropriate diagnosis, correlating codes are automatically mapped to both ICD-9 and ICD-10,where there is a one-to-one match.

“The transition to ICD-10 represents one of the most significant changes to clinical documentation since EHR adoption. Providers that don’t manage the transition well will face high levels of denied claims, delayed payments, inconvenience to patients and potentially legal exposure in the event that improper coding is audited,” said Judy Hanover, research director with IDC Health Insights. “Products that help ease the pain of the transition should do very well in this market.”

Robust features enable providers to spend more time with patients

Centricity Practice Solution offers enhancements in three key areas that help to improve clinical and financial productivity for ambulatory practices:

Customizable: Centricity Practice Solution offers flexible workflows that providers can configure to mirror how their specific practice operates, thus reducing the amount of time spent on data entry. Additionally, CPS allows exceptional customization and decision support tools that enable efficient patient encounters.

Progressive: In addition to the predictive search engine and one-click problem entry, Centricity Practice Solution includes a portfolio of pre-built reports and access to GE’s database of nearly 30 million de-identified patient records, so that providers can gather information to prepare to attest for Meaningful Use, benchmark clinical outcomes and adopt new care models like Patient Centered Medical Home.

Interoperable: Centricity Practice Solution is available as a fully-integrated EMR/PM package, or either module can be configured to operate as a standalone solution. Centricity Practice Solution also has the built-in tools and forms that enable it to connect to virtually any hospital EMR or revenue cycle system, thus enabling providers to share data with multiple delivery networks in order to offer more coordinated, data-driven care.

“Centricity Practice Solution gives our customers a leg up on transitioning to ICD-10 coding standards,” said Mike Friguletto, vice president and general manager of GE Healthcare IT. “Our customers that choose to upgrade will be thrilled with the one-click problem entry and ability to continue to customize workflows. It’s truly a game-changer.”

*Registered trademark of General Electric Corp.

###

About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.

Our “healthymagination” vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on increasing access and improving quality and affordability around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees are committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com. For our latest news, please visit http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com.

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January 24, 2013 I Written By John

Filed Under: EHR EHR Vendors Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR Healthcare IT ICD-10

Tags:Centricity Practice Solution 11 GE GE Centricity GE Healthcare IDC Health Insights Jay Prakash Judy Hanover Mike Friguletto South Atlanta Medical Clinic

Academic and Industry Leaders Team Up To Develop Next Generation Medical Imaging Technology – #HIMSS12

As HIMSS rounds out the week in Las Vegas, a quick riddle: What happens when some of the most recognizable brand names in college football join forces with two of the world’s leading industries to develop a breakthrough medical imaging technology? The answer: Veo.

Veo is GE’s new CT image reconstruction technology that provides high quality diagnostic images at unheard of low dose levels. Developed in partnership with researchers from Notre Dame, Purdue and the University of Michigan, as well as experts from Intel and GE Healthcare, Veo is changing the CT game globally by helping physicians get closer to GE’s goal of routine CT imaging at under 1 millisievert (mSv) per exam with profound image clarity. Patient safety matters – and so does having the best research and development teams on the field.

For over a decade, GE Healthcare has partnered with academic researchers from Purdue, Notre Dame and Michigan, and experts from Intel, to develop Veo – the world’s first Model-Based Iterative Reconstruction (MBiR) technique. Available on GE’s Discovery* CT750 HD, Veo changes the rules of CT imaging by helping physicians provide accurate diagnoses with high quality images while enabling them to lower patients’ radiation dose levels.

Traditionally in CT, physicians have had to balance the desires for high image quality and low radiation dose levels. While high image quality often required greater patient exposure to diagnostic radiation, lower dose levels for the patient usually meant lower image clarity from higher noise and more artifacts. Veo helps to change the equation, and takes the next step toward GE’s goal of routine CT imaging at under 1 millisievert (mSv) per exam with profound image clarity. In comparison, traditional CT exams, depending on the exam and patient, expose the patient to anywhere from 2-15 mSv of effective radiation dose, while natural background radiation exposes the average American to around 3 mSv of radiation per year.

Veo’s advanced algorithm was crafted by Charles A. Bouman, Ph.D., professor at Purdue University, and Ken Sauer, Ph.D., associate professor at Notre Dame, in collaboration with Jiang Hsieh, Jean-Baptiste Thibault and Zhou Yu from GE Healthcare. This collaborative research began in 2001, before iterative reconstruction was a major focus of medical imaging manufacturers. Ten years later, in late 2011, these three organizations signed an exclusive license agreement allowing Veo and the underlying MBiR technology to be commercialized by GE Healthcare.

“Conventional CT scanning takes thousands of views from different angles to ‘see’ 3D structures inside the body,” Dr. Bouman says. “However, Veo can form the same 3D image with much less X-ray exposure, or dosage, because it uses a computer algorithm called Model-Based Iterative Reconstruction (MBiR). MBiR solves an enormous puzzle to find the best 3D reconstruction so it can both reduce noise and create a much sharper image.”

Scientists from the University of Michigan (U-M) also contributed to the research behind Veo, and the U-M Health System recently became one of the first U.S. teaching hospitals to install Veo – enabling some CT scans using a fraction of the dose required for a conventional CT image.

Jeff Fessler, Ph.D., a U-M professor in the Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Radiology and Biomedical Engineering departments collaborated with GE on the project and explains how Veo is a new way of processing data. Using the MBiR technique, the technology employs sophisticated algorithms to produce clearer information from the existing X-ray data. A CT scan typically consists of thousands of cross-section images of the body that must be reconstructed from raw data. “It’s a staggering amount of data,” says Fessler. “And doctors can’t just look at the raw data; they need software to process it into a meaningful image.”

Once Veo’s revolutionary algorithm was established, GE partnered with Intel engineers to speed up CT image processing time from several days for one clinical case to now as fast as multiple cases in one hour. Intel’s processor performance helped allow increased throughput and, by extension, staff productivity – and ultimately helped make Veo practical in a variety of clinical settings.

“Using Intel® Xeon® Processor technology in commercial medical solutions, GE Healthcare has been able to achieve diagnostic images while helping to lower patients’ radiation dose levels significantly.” says Michelle Tinsley, Intel Personal Solutions General Manager.

Veo’s development and clinical potential reflect how GE Healthcare continues to work alongside leading academic institutions, cutting edge industry partners and healthcare professionals globally to find new ways to drive better outcomes and improve patient experience.

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February 22, 2012 I Written By David

Filed Under: Healthcare Healthcare IT Healthcare IT Vendor Medical Equipment Medical Imaging Radiology

Tags:Charles A. Bouman CT Image Reconstruction Technology GE Discovery CT750 HD GE Healthcare HIMSS12 Intel Jean Baptiste Thibault Jeff Fessler Jiang Hsieh Ken Sauer Model Based Iterative Reconstruction Veo Zhou Yu

Critical-Care Patient Monitoring Data Available on Doctors’ iPads and iPhones

GE today announced a significant mobile app for critical-care hospital units: remote doctors can now access more than 100 patient measurements on iPhones and iPads. AirStrip is collaborating with GE to make this widely available.

Called AirStrip PATIENT MONITORING, it helps doctors interact with, manipulate and zoom in on many clinical measurements – e.g. respiratory, cardiac, blood pressure, temperature – and access near-real-time patient information flows. Traditionally, mobile viewing applications do not provide this level of interactivity, offer limited data subsets or do not enable live access to patient data. Now if a nurse requires immediate consultation, doctors can be located anywhere and access critical patient information via their iPhones or iPads.

GE Healthcare and AirStrip Technologies empower busy doctors with the ability to interact with, manipulate and focus on broad range of critical-care information, supporting efficient clinical decision-making on mobile devices

GE Healthcare and AirStrip Technologies today announced AirStrip PATIENT MONITORING^TM, which securely delivers patient monitoring information to critical-care physicians’ iPhones® and iPads.™ AirStrip helps physicians interact with, manipulate and zoom in on more than 100 clinical measurements and access physiologic data and monitoring waveforms, anytime and anywhere.

AirStrip PATIENT MONITORING is designed to help mobile physicians make efficient, informed clinical decisions across and beyond hospital boundaries. The technology adds to GE Healthcare and AirStrip Technologies’ initial joint offering, AirStrip CARDIOLOGY^TM, which provides cardiologists with digitally enhanced and comparative cardiac ECG data that can be accessed on iPads and iPhones.

Critical-care physicians must make timely treatment decisions for the hospital’s sickest patients. However, they face increasingly hectic patient care responsibilities, making it difficult to continuously be at the bedside. AirStrip PATIENT MONITORING can serve as an important clinical decision support tool and help expand physicians’ access to patient information. If a nurse requires immediate consultation, physicians can be located anywhere and access critical patient information before determining appropriate care approaches.

Clinicians are early adopters of many wireless devices. According to a Manhattan Research survey, 75 percent of U.S. physicians own some form of Apple device, such as an iPhone or iPad.¹

“As doctors increasingly use smartphones and tablets, GE Healthcare is committed to driving convergence between mobile technologies, biomedical devices and clinical information systems,” said Thierry Leclercq, general manager, Life Care Solutions, GE Healthcare. “AirStrip PATIENT MONITORING combines GE Healthcare’s clinical innovations and AirStrip’s powerful mobile health technologies. Empowering doctors with highly interactive patient monitoring information, when and where it is needed, supports physician decision-making and ultimately, patient safety and care.”

Because physicians can directly view and zoom in on live clinical measurements, AirStrip PATIENT MONITORING offers physicians greater decision support than traditional mobile viewing applications which do not enable this level of interaction and provide only limited subsets of data.

AirStrip PATIENT MONITORING is a native application specifically designed for environments where mobile access to critical patient data is essential.

“The mobile technology platform at the heart of AirStrip PATIENT MONITORING can revolutionize the way healthcare is delivered by decentralizing secure, actionable patient information and making it accessible virtually anytime, anywhere,” said Cameron Powell, M.D., President and Chief Medical Officer, AirStrip. “AirStrip PATIENT MONITORING unites a strong user experience with the ability for clinicians to make faster, more informed treatment decisions via their mobile device, which can then improve patient care and overall workflow in ways that doctors are already embracing.”

AirStrip PATIENT MONITORING helps clinicians access near real-time data and historical patient information up to 24 hours ago. It links with GE Healthcare’s portfolio of comprehensive patient monitoring platforms, such as the CARESCAPE* Monitor B850, CARESCAPE* Monitor B650, Solar* and Dash* monitors, to give physicians access to patient waveforms, vital signs and other critical clinical measurements on interactive iPad and iPhone displays. This connectivity is powered via CARESCAPE* Gateway, which interfaces biomedical devices with hospital information systems to streamline otherwise disparate clinical information.

In 2010, AirStrip received FDA clearance of the platform behind AirStrip PATIENT MONITORING, and announced it obtained the CE Mark in January 2012. This technology is designed to promote HIPAA compliance and clinical data is securely stored on hospital servers, rather than residing on doctors’ mobile devices.

U.S. hospitals can now purchase AirStrip PATIENT MONITORING through GE Healthcare. To learn more about AirStrip PATIENT MONITORING, please visit http://www.airstriptech.com/.

About AirStrip Technologies, Inc.

Headquartered in San Antonio, Texas and backed by Sequoia Capital, AirStrip Technologies develops first-in-class mobile technology that enables access to live and actionable patient data across the care continuum. By pioneering mobility in healthcare through solutions that can be accessed without restrictions—geographic or otherwise—AirStrip will further enhance physician reach and improve patient outcomes to transform healthcare. AirStrip Technologies develops native smartphone and tablet applications for true mobility-enhancing clinical workflow and decision making, allowing physicians to be anywhere and still access patient information. Visit www.airstriptech.com for more information.

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.

Our “healthymagination” vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees are committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.