Myrtue Medical Center Selects Design Clinicals as IT Vendor to Position for Meaningful Use Requirements, Stimulus Funds
Myrtue Medical Center has chosen Design Clinicals as its IT vendor to expand electronic medication reconciliation to a full Patient-Safety Platform with MedsTracker® Enterprise Medication Reconciliation. The move will secure Myrtue's place on the fast track to quickly demonstrate "meaningful use" and take advantage of federal recovery act incentive payments.
Seattle, WA (PRWEB) January 8, 2010
Myrtue Medical Center of Harlan, Iowa has chosen Design Clinicals as the IT vendor to expand electronic medication reconciliation to a full Patient-Safety Platform, securing Myrtue’s place on the fast track to quickly demonstrate “meaningful use” and take advantage of federal recovery act incentive payments.
“MedsTracker distinguishes itself by its success rate for physician adoption,” said Khristine Jacobsen, chief information officer for Myrtue Medical Center, a 25-bed Critical Access hospital in rural Iowa. “The founders of Design Clinicals have lived the life the clinicians are living. The result is a product that exemplifies a whole new realm of understanding of the nursing-physician relationship and the entire clinician workflow. MedsTracker has increased patient safety and decreased our discharge time. Taking the application to the next level with computerized order entry will prevent errors at every point of care—and it will accomplish this in a way that respects and supports each doctor’s workflow preferences.”
Developed by practicing physicians and hospital IT professionals, MedsTracker has a 90-plus percent physician adoption rate, making it an ideal component of an enterprise approach to meeting meaningful use requirements. While actual criteria are still in draft form, it is clear that under the HITECH provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), incentive payments—and avoidance of penalties—will emphasize clinical adoption and require demonstrated, productive use by physicians. MedsTracker also meets the Joint Commission Patient Safety Goal for medication reconciliation for 2011.
“Design Clinicals will position Myrtue to deliver safe and effective care, to meet the criteria for meaningful use not only for 2011, but also for 2013 and 2015,” said Dewey Howell, MD, PhD, founder and president of Design Clinicals.
Hospitals, particularly small Critical Access hospitals, struggle with the staggering costs of building and implementing IT systems to support the future of meaningful use and standards-based interoperability. The federal stimulus package provides incentives and creates urgency for hospitals to invest in healthcare technology to improve quality and increase patient safety, while enhancing performance measurement and reporting functions.
In addition to cost, healthcare IT research firm KLAS reports that barriers to implementation include finding the right vendor that can deliver satisfactory functionality—approximately half the electronic medical records vendors were unable to deliver satisfactory functionality scores for their products, particularly in computerized physician order entry (CPOE). MedsTracker offers robust functionality that today supports many of the anticipated meaningful use criteria with comprehensive patient safety modules, while providing a flexible, lean solution that doesn’t require extensive resources for build-out, implementation and support.
“MedsTracker is the ideal solution, especially for small, Critical Access designation hospitals,” said Myrtue Chief Executive Officer Barry Jacobsen. “Implementing MedsTracker places Myrtue on the leading edge of meaningful use for a truly comprehensive electronic health record future. It helps ensure incentive funding through the ARRA—all while performing its most important task: greatly improving safety for our patients.”
Jacobsen added, “What matters most in selecting a software solution is whether the program can mesh with the culture and workflow within the organization. The enhanced MedsTracker Platform will increase efficiency for the whole hospital, without requiring us to significantly change our culture.”
About Myrtue Medical Center
Myrtue Medical Center in rural Harlan, Iowa, was awarded critical access hospital status in 2005. The newly integrated healthcare system operates a 25-bed hospital with a well-equipped surgery suite, family birthing center, physical and occupational therapy and sports medicine, radiology, laboratory, respiratory therapy and the full spectrum of outpatient clinic services. Myrtue Medical Center incorporates the Harlan, Avoca, Shelby and Elk Horn medical clinics as well as behavioral health services; and Myrtue’s Community Health Department encompasses home health, public health, hospice and behavioral health covering the needs of all ages including Kids Corner, a free program for families of young children to provide better health care and school readiness. For more information, visit www. MyrtueMedical. org.
About Design Clinicals
Design Clinicals, Inc. is a healthcare information technology company dedicated to providing leading-edge tools to improve the delivery of patient care. Founded in 2005 by practicing physicians and hospital IT professionals, Design Clinicals offers innovative, intuitive software solutions that enhance communications, improve workflow, increase patient safety and ensure regulatory compliance. Products are highly adaptive, able to integrate with virtually any hospital information system, with proven, superior clinician adoption rates. For more information, visit www. DesignClinicals. com or call Kyle Baird at (888) 633-7320 ext. 108.
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