Eclipsys reaches milestone: 50 millionth order entered into its EHR system

Nov 23 2009

Eclipsys Corporation® (NASDAQ: ECLP), The Outcomes Company®, continues to strengthen its position as a leader in computerized physician order entry (CPOE) with the announcement today that long-standing client Sarasota Memorial Health Care System (Sarasota Memorial), located in Sarasota, FL, recently entered its 50 millionth order into its electronic health record (EHR) system. The notable physician order was entered by emergency medicine specialist Bill Colgate, MD.

“There is perhaps no other initiative we have taken more seriously or invested more time and resources in than our electronic medical system and the safety features it lends to patient care,” said Denis Baker, Sarasota Memorial’s Chief Information Officer. “To remain a leader in this rapidly evolving technological world is a testament to our medical staff’s extraordinary commitment and dedication to patient safety and the most advanced medical care.”

Sarasota Memorial – recognized repeatedly as one of America’s Best Hospitals by U.S. News & World Report, and one of America’s Safest Large Hospitals by Forbes – is one of only 4.1 percent of U.S. hospitals at Stage 4 of the HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model^SM, which is designed to assess the penetration of clinical information technology use within U.S. healthcare organizations. Overall nearly half (49 percent) of American hospitals have yet to reach Stage 3 on the EMR Adoption Model. The 806-bed community hospital on Florida’s Gulf Coast has been using Eclipsys’ health information technology to redesign its workflow processes and improve care quality and efficiency since 1998. Since that time, the hospital has developed a fully integrated system, redesigning its workflow systems and replacing virtually all of its paper documentation with electronic processes.

Physicians, nurses and other care providers now place 99.9 percent of the hospital’s patient care orders and care notes electronically, reducing the risks associated with illegible handwritten orders and providing physicians with rapid access to their patient’s medical history, test results and other information needed for clinical decision-making. The electronic medical record (EMR) also offers allergy and medication safety alerts and lets physicians instantly review and manage their patients’ care at any time from any place they have internet access – from their homes, their offices, even their cars.

The results have been well received: Improved turnaround times for X-rays, lab work and other tests, as well as fewer delays between order submission and administration of medications. Physicians and nurses no longer waste time searching the chart for paper lab slips or reports or clarifying illegible orders, and in many cases, electronic order sets have standardized “best practices” for nurses and doctors.

“We have the highest regard for Sarasota’s leadership in their use of HIT to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of patient care,” said Jay Deady, Eclipsys’ executive vice president of Client Solutions. “Given the low level of technology adoption among U.S. hospitals today, this order entry milestone demonstrates the distinguished leadership within the Eclipsys client base. It also showcases our clients’ satisfaction with superior solutions that offer highly complex clinical decision support capabilities and workflows that can be easily tailored to how physicians practice medicine.”

Nationwide, scores of Eclipsys client hospitals and health systems are achieving high CPOE adoption and outcomes. A few examples include:

• St. Clair Hospital (Pittsburgh, PA) has successfully used Eclipsys’ CPOE solution to standardize anticoagulant therapies to prevent patient blood clotting. St. Clair’s CPOE heparin infusion protocols, for example, have resulted in a 43 percent reduction in heparin infusion-related occurrences in inpatient units and an overall hospital reduction of 24 percent.
• Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center (Bronx, NY), the largest voluntary, not-for-profit healthcare system in south and central Bronx, recently activated Eclipsys’ ambulatory EHR, Sunrise Ambulatory Care™ in a 40-doctor multispecialty clinic in less than six months. The activation builds upon the successful use of Eclipsys’ CPOE solution at its 579-bed hospital. Because of the integration between the two solutions, most of the orders set templates required for the ambulatory EHR were already in place.
• Children’s Hospital & Medical Center (Omaha, NE) has achieved a voluntary adoption rate of CPOE of 79 percent. Prescribing and transcription mediation errors reaching the patient fell from 0.89/1000 orders to 0.51/1000 orders for orders entered via CPOE. Transcription errors were eliminated when CPOE was used.

Eclipsys’ CPO solution, Sunrise Acute Care™, contains the input of thousands of physicians for evidence-based order sets and frequently used protocols to achieve unmatched, continuous evolution in its clinical decision support and order entry application. The intuitive, easy-to-adopt solution supports fully automating even the most complex order sets and medication ordering, including the exacting protocols, long-range medication schedules and complicated treatment plans commonplace in oncology and pediatric care environments.

According to the KLAS CPOE Digest 2009: Meaningful Use and Physician Adoption report, 25 percent of the total number of doctors doing CPOE on a commercial system use Eclipsys. The company also continues to have the highest physician satisfaction from clients who use its system, and on average, highly customizable ordering capabilities allow a physician to order faster than any other CPOE solution on the market.