Innovative Information Technology Platform Improves Patient Care

A multiple healthcare information technology (HIT) solution creates a unified electronic medical record (EMR) for every patient that visits a healthcare facility, automating clinical, financial, and management processes.

The Millennium Healthcare Computing Platform allows doctors and nurses to electronically document care in the patient's record, access research about medical best practices, automate hospital processes in multiple departments, and connect medical devices to the EMR at the patient's point-of-care (POC) to meet the specific needs of care providers, front- and back-office professionals, and consumers. Users can also access the unified patient EMR to check on up-to-the-minute information about the patient, including past visits, lab results, radiology images, and data gathered from medical devices connected directly to the EMR. This access reduces the chance of medication errors for patients, as drugs are administered through a barcode management system. The system also helps improve patient safety by providing protocols designed to advance clinician knowledge and prevent medical errors, and identify opportunities to improve treatment practices by analyzing aggregated data from the EMR. A remote-hosting option can also provide predictable, uninterrupted connectivity and system support for the healthcare-computing platform. The Millennium Healthcare Computing Platform is a product of Cerner (Kansas City; MO, USA).

"Implementation of Cerner Millennium solutions will provide doctors and nurses with access to evidence-based knowledge that will help them provide better care to patients,” said Barry Freedman, President and CEO of the Albert Einstein Healthcare Network (Philadelphia, PA, USA). "Our clinicians will be able to access up-to-date patient information and medical best practices at our hospitals and outpatient facilities.”

A major concern of the use of EMRs is adequate confidentiality of the individual records that are being managed electronically. According to the Los Angeles Times, roughly 150 people (from doctors and nurses to technicians and billing clerks) have access to at least part of a patient's records during a hospitalization, and 600,000 payers, providers, and other entities that handle providers' billing data have some access. Multiple access points over an open network like the Internet further increase possible patient data interception.

Related Links:
Cerner
Albert Einstein Healthcare Network