Community Hospitals Prove the Effectiveness of Cerner CPOE; UPMC St. M

    Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers
    HIMSS 2005 Annual Conference
    booth #3924

    KANSAS CITY, Mo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 15, 2005--

Oklahoma Heart Reaches 100 Percent Compliance with Clinical Standards

    Community hospitals such as the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) St. Margaret and Oklahoma Heart Hospital are leading the next wave of computerized physician order entry (CPOE), already proven to reduce medication errors, improve efficiency and increase compliance with recommended treatments in academic and children's hospitals.
    "Cerner CPOE enables process modifications such as unifying the team and placing clinical decision-making support at the point of service, which allows organizations to provide evidence-based care," said Trace Devanny, Cerner president. "By leveraging Cerner's proven CPOE methodology, community hospitals are better positioned to ensure optimal health outcomes for their patients and elevate organizational efficiency."
    More than 130,000 physicians use Cerner's healthcare information technology solutions, many at community hospitals. The recently released KLAS 2005 CPOE Digest(a) shows Cerner to have more acute care hospitals live on Cerner Millennium(R) CPOE than any other currently marketed solution. Cerner helps healthcare providers such as UPMC St. Margaret and Oklahoma Heart optimize the quality of care they deliver to their communities by partnering with them to develop CPOE systems that deliver real benefits.

    UPMC St. Margaret: Community hospital achieves high CPOE adoption among physicians

    UPMC St. Margaret, a 258-bed, acute-care community hospital, provides healthcare to more than 250,000 residents of northeastern Allegheny County, Pa. The hospital, primarily staffed with private practice attending physicians, deployed CPOE in September 2004 and now has more than 90 percent of the 250 active staff physicians entering orders through the Cerner CPOE solution.
    This adoption rate places UPMC St. Margaret at the forefront of implementing eRecord, a UPMC system-wide initiative across that links doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other caregivers, giving them the ability to instantly access important information, improve care quality, reduce errors and provide cost-effective care.
    "This started out from the beginning as a patient safety issue, not an IT project," said Dr. Joel Diamond, chairman of the UPMC St. Margaret physician advisory committee. "As soon as we turned on the system, physicians started putting orders into CPOE. One doctor came to me that first day and said he had just finished his 50th order."
    In addition to physician acceptance, UPMC St. Margaret achieved significant benefits in medication turnaround times, compliance with standards and workflow efficiencies. For example, physicians can now verify and dispense high-priority medication orders sooner and consistently order smoking cessation counseling. In addition, physicians receive fewer calls for clarification of orders, which saves valuable time.
    UPMC St. Margaret achieved these results by establishing effective governance committees, recruiting physician leaders to take a prominent role in the project and involving clinicians in design decisions. The hospital also maximized communications, prepared physicians by enabling results viewing prior to CPOE implementation, and provided significant training and support.

    Oklahoma Heart Hospital: All-digital hospital achieves 100-percent compliance with clinical standards

    Oklahoma Heart sees 650 acute-care admissions per month and performs more than 1,000 heart surgeries and 5,400 cardiac catheterizations per year. When the hospital opened in 2002, it was dedicated to operating an entirely paperless organization through the implementation of healthcare IT solutions in partnership with Cerner, including bedside computers, caregiver access to information from any location and CPOE.
    "We decided to go 100-percent CPOE to minimize mistakes, optimize the use of evidence-based medicine and enable documenting the use of those best practices," said Dr. Dwayne Schmidt, a founding member of Oklahoma Cardiovascular Associates, a group of clinics located throughout Oklahoma and part owners of the hospital.
    To successfully deliver both acute and ambulatory cardiac care, Oklahoma Heart is committed to achieving the highest standards of care, patient and associate satisfaction and efficient care delivery. The hospital has developed and now uses more than 80 care sets based on a person's disease or procedure to standardize the care provided and ensure compliance with evidence-based medicine. This process has resulted in 100 percent compliance with Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations core measures related to acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure and community acquired pneumonia.
    "Standardization helps prevent errors. Through the use of care sets, we consistently meet best practice standards, enabling us to achieve excellent outcomes," said Debbie Kearns, chief nursing executive at Oklahoma Heart. "CPOE significantly reduces the potential for medication errors."
    Demonstrating the impact of technology on its workforce, Oklahoma Heart ranks in the 90th percentile in nursing satisfaction, according to the Gallop Survey for Nursing. The organization also has a 98 percent retention rate of nurses.

    Cerner CPOE: Benefit from Experience

    UPMC St. Margaret and Oklahoma Heart Hospital are two of the 65 acute care and 313 ambulatory care sites live with Cerner CPOE. The HIMSS Analytics(SM) Database (formerly the Dorenfest IHDS+ Database(TM)) found Cerner to have the largest market share for CPOE systems. Of the acute-care hospitals live or contracted for CPOE, 27.6 percent stated they had chosen Cerner's CPOE solution. The next highest supplier had a 19 percent market share. Cerner was also shown to have the largest annual increase in hospitals using CPOE, as noted in the KLAS 2005 CPOE Digest.(a)
    Cerner's total focus is on designing, building and implementing healthcare solutions. Through its 25 years of cumulative learning, Cerner now has 3,767 Cerner Millennium applications live at 749 facilities worldwide. Cerner will demonstrate how to leverage its proven solutions at the 2005 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Annual Conference and Exhibition in Dallas from Feb. 14-17. Cerner will be located in booth #3924 at HIMSS. For more information please visit www.cerner.com/himss.

    Cerner Corp. is taking the paper chart out of healthcare, eliminating error, variance and waste in the care process. With more than 1,500 clients worldwide, Cerner is the leading supplier of healthcare information technology. The following are trademarks of Cerner: Cerner, Cerner Millennium, Cerner's logo. NASDAQ: CERN; www.cerner.com.

    (a)KLAS 2005 CPOE Digest, February 2005, (C) KLAS Enterprises, LLC. All rights reserved. www.healthcomputing.com

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CONTACT: Cerner Corp. MEDIA: Lindsey Henry Moss, 816-201-4321 lindsey.henry@cerner.com or INVESTORS: Allan Kells, 816-201-2445 akells@cerner.com

KEYWORD: MISSOURI TEXAS TRACK INDUSTRY KEYWORD: MEDICAL TRADESHOW MARKETING AGREEMENTS SOURCE: Cerner Corp.

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