Healthcare organizations select McKesson’s cardiovascular information system for workflow efficiency

Nov 24 2009

With the United States’ population growing older and cardiology patient volume expected to increase in the coming years, cardiology departments are being forced to do more work with the same staffing levels. To face this challenge, health systems large and small are turning to McKesson’s Horizon Cardiology^™ cardiovascular information system (CVIS) to achieve a more efficient workflow. As a scalable, fully integrated platform, this system allows organizations to capture data throughout cardiovascular-related procedures, enabling providers to thoroughly track and analyze quality and efficiency of care.

Organizations that recently have chosen McKesson to replace existing CVIS include:

• Citrus Valley Health Partners (Covina, Calif.)
• IASIS Healthcare (Franklin, Tenn.)
• Memorial Hospital of South Bend (South Bend, Ind.)
• Saint Joseph Hospital (Chicago, Ill.)
• Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center (Chicago, Ill.)
• Shannon Health (San Angelo, Texas)

These organizations selected one or more components from the Horizon Cardiology CVIS over competing systems because of its advanced workflow support for invasive and non-invasive cardiovascular departments, including its uniquely integrated hemodynamic monitoring and ECG management. By giving physicians access to critical health data anytime and anywhere using powerful Web reporting and imaging tools, Horizon Cardiology helps these physicians improve productivity.

“We were wrestling with two different and disparate systems in our hospital and clinic that limited the ability of our physicians to review patient data quickly and effectively,” said Derek Clark, IT project manager, Shannon Health. “With the McKesson solution, physicians can go to a computer in either facility, their offices or even at home to securely review and complete studies. This speeds diagnosis and treatment, and we believe it will improve health outcomes.”

Like Shannon Health, IASIS Healthcare sought to connect multiple locations with one solution – but on a much bigger scale.

“By adopting Horizon Cardiology for our 16 facilities, we greaty increased workflow efficiency by taking the islands of data and static images and incorporating them into our electronic medical record,” said Mark Watts, imaging systems manager, IASIS Healthcare. “This process ultimately improves decision making because the images from our EKG and cath labs are more quickly accessible to our physicians.”

By providing a single platform for archiving, procedure reporting and workflow management functions, Horizon Cardiology enables healthcare organizations to meet all cardiovascular data needs. Information is automatically captured throughout the treatment process, providing the ability to analyze operations and track the quality of care outcomes. Care providers can access a complete view of patient records across healthcare settings wherever diagnosis and treatment decisions are made.

“Healthcare organizations of all sizes are recognizing that technology is a powerful enabler of workflow changes that can improve both patient care and the bottom line,” said Rod O’Reilly, president, Medical Imaging Group, McKesson Provider Technologies. “Providing caregivers with access to cardiovascular information on a single platform enables workflow improvements that were impossible to achieve with their previous multiplatform systems.”