Desert Regional Medical Center Implements Cerner RxStation to Improve Medication Management

Preventable medical errors harm as many as 1.5 million people every year. Of those errors, the 400,000 that happen in hospitals are estimated to cost about $3.5 billion dollars a year, according to a 2006 report from the Institute of Medicine. As part of an effort to prevent its hospital from being part of that statistic, Desert Regional Medical Center (DRMC) purchased the Cerner RxStation™ automated medication dispensing cabinets. "We are committed to doing everything we can to improve the health and well-being of the communities we serve; reducing the potential for medication errors is critical to that vision,” said Karolee Sowle, Administrator/COO for Desert Regional Medical Center. "Automating our medication management with the Cerner RxStation cabinet allows us to eliminate a source of potential human error, and assists in preventing unnecessary harm and cost to our patients and organization.” The RxStation healthcare device creates a fully automated medication-management process by connecting the medication dispensing unit directly to the Cerner Millennium® solution for the patient electronic medical record (EMR). When clinicians go to the cabinet to retrieve medications, they open the patient’s EMR and select the medication to be administered. A drawer on the RxStation cabinet containing the appropriate medication at the appropriate dose opens, allowing the clinicians to retrieve the medication. Since the medication-dispensing process is automated, the risk of a clinician grabbing the wrong medication is virtually eliminated. The RxStation healthcare device also aids pharmacies with medication inventory management by instantly updating the quantities of available medications and triggering alerts for those running low. "The RxStation cabinet is a significant advancement in medication-administration management,” said Bill Miller, Vice President of DeviceWorks for Cerner. "Since the RxStation cabinet is connected directly to the Cerner Millennium EMR solution, we can ensure the medication ordered by the physician is actually what is being administered, both safeguarding patients and ultimately creating a single source of truth in the EMR where information about the patient’s care resides.” The RxStation automated medication-dispensing units work in conjunction with the Cerner PharmNet® solution to provide a fully integrated medication management solution. When fully implemented, more than 500 nurses, 25 pharmacists and 30 pharmacy technicians will rely on the RxStation to manage the medication-administration process. The RxStation cabinet has been designed in a modular format to enhance clinician and pharmacist workflow. The modular design allows healthcare organizations to customize the types of drawers in the cabinet from medication access to drawer dimension to best fit the needs of individual departments. The RxStation healthcare device will be on display at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) Midyear Clinical Meeting Dec. 3-5 in Las Vegas. About Desert Regional Medical Center Desert Regional Medical Center, part of Tenet California, is a 394-bed acute care facility located at 1150 N. Indian Canyon Road in Palm Springs. Founded in 1951, the hospital’s Richards Emergency/Trauma Services is the Coachella Valley’s only designated trauma center servicing more than 800 miles to the Arizona border. In addition, the medical center offers a vast array of specialty services, including the Comprehensive Cancer Center; the Women and Infant Center; the area’s only Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and Maternal Fetal Medicine Center for high-risk pregnancies; the Bariatric Specialists program; the Institute of Clinical Orthopedics and Neurosciences; the Cardiovascular Institute of Palm Springs, the valley’s only acute inpatient rehabilitation unit; Hospice of the Desert Communities, offering both inpatient and outpatient hospice services; the Nabisco Dinah Shore Wellness Center; Health Key Plus senior program and Healthy Beginnings maternity program. This highly dedicated facility has been featured in "Champions of Industry” on the Discovery Channel. Desert Regional Medical Center is fully accredited by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), the nation’s oldest and largest hospital accreditation agency. To learn more about these and other services at Desert Regional Medical Center visit www.desertmedctr.com. About Cerner Cerner Corp. is taking the paper chart out of healthcare, eliminating error, variance and waste in the care process. With more than 6,000 clients worldwide, Cerner is the leading supplier of healthcare information technology. The following are trademarks of Cerner: Cerner Millennium, RxStation, PharmNet and the Cerner logo. NASDAQ: CERN. www.cerner.com. This release contains forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. It is important to note that the Company's performance, and actual results, financial condition or business could differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. The words "will” or the negative of these words, variations thereof or similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: the possibility of product-related liabilities; our proprietary technology may be subjected to infringement claims or may be infringed upon; risks related to third party suppliers; government regulation; and, failure of the parties to achieve the intended benefits. Additional discussion of these and other factors affecting the Company's business is contained in the Company's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect changed assumptions, the occurrence of unanticipated events or changes in future operating results, financial condition or business over time.