August 2004
 
Advance for Health Information Executives
Misys Pharmacy and Misys Insight are featured in "Pursuing the Paperless Pharmacy," a story about Indianapolis-based Community Health Network's pharmacy department's validation of what it already knows: an automated, paper-light medication administration process increases patient safety, enhances patient care, improves the clinician work environment, and reduces costs. Author Steve Hultgren, R.Ph., director of pharmacy at CHN, writes, "The pharmacy system had proved itself to be easy to learn, intuitive to use and capable of delivering the functionality we needed. So, rather than switch to our medical record vendor's pharmacy solution, we decided to interface Misys Pharmacy to the medical record system."
 
Health Management Technology
Mark Winchester, senior vice president of market development, Misys Healthcare Systems, is the author of "Wanted: New Partners," a Thought Leaders column that makes the case for nongovernmental insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies to step up and ease the burden of EHR adoption for physicians and EHR vendors. "If insurance and pharmaceutical companies would make programs available to physicians to financially benefit them, those programs, in turn, would improve bottom line of insurers and pharmaceuticals, reduce healthcare costs and improve patient care," says Winchester. "It's time for insurance and pharmaceutical companies to get off the sidelines and join the game."

July 2004
 
Advance for Administrators of the Laboratory
The quest to reduce transfusion-transmitted diseases has come to the forefront of blood bank issues in recent months. With the new AABB and CAP standards for reducing platelet bacterial contamination comes increased awareness and concern. In "Safeguards for the Bloodbank," Misys Healthcare Systems is one of the blood bank industry leaders profiled offering advanced tools to decreased the risk of transfusion-transmitted diseases to safeguard the nation's blood supply. "Using the system's inventory function, users can quickly and precisely enter blood products via barcode readers, including ISBT 128 format. Products entered include both source ID and hospital-defined numbers," says Debbie Tillman, B.S., senior product manager, Misys Healthcare Systems. Additional system features include shipping of products to other facilities, ordering and issue of manufactured products, and tracking of autologous and directed units to patients.

Healthcare Informatics
The article "Lab Information Systems: Testing, Testing" explores the role of lab information technology in today's hospital electronic medical record environment. Quoted are Elinore Craig, former Misys Laboratory product line director and now enterprise sales/services advisor, and Misys Laboratory client Walter H. Henricks, M.D., medical director of Laboratory Information Services, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Excerpt: Henricks, whose Cleveland lab relies on solutions from Misys, sums up: "The laboratory is at a point where it's critically dependent on its information systems. Smaller, less complicated labs can get away with smaller, less complicated systems. We're a complex lab, and we need a workhorse."

Journal of Clinical Systems Management
Patty Guinn, R.N., B.S., director of nursing informatics, Misys Healthcare Systems, is the author of "Preserving High Touch in a High Tech World." As the use of technology expands in the patient care setting, nursing sets an example of assuring the human touch is always a part of care delivery. Patient satisfaction is affected positively as a result. "The ability to preserve 'high touch' in the technology evolution of our profession and as part of each patient's care journey is up to us," says Guinn.

June 2004
 
Advanced for Administrators of the Laboratory
Misys Commercial Laboratory and Misys Clinical Financial solutions are helping Austin-based Clinical Pathology Laboratories (CPL) gain a competitive edge in many ways, including: regulatory compliance, productivity enhancements, scalability, expansion, and strategic management and planning. CPL has grown from 1,500 patients a day to 17,000; one facility in one city to 29 facilities in nine states; and 4,000 tests per day to 45,000 tests per day. The Misys systems have made the growth possible. The case-study article, "Sustaining Growth, Profitability for Clinical Pathology," is co-written by David Schultz, president, and Judy Denney, chief information officer, CPL.

American Medical News
Marc Winchester, senior vice president of market development, Misys Healthcare Systems, is quoted in the article, "Health IT chief: Public-private partnership needed for EMRs." National Healthcare Information Technology Coordinator David Brailer, M.D., Ph.D., wants to help physicians catch up adopting information technology. And he's calling on the private sector to assist him in the task. Winchester states Misys is developing "all-inclusive packages that are billed per physician, per month."

Canadian Healthcare Technology
Matthew Morgan, M.D., vice president of clinical informatics, Misys Healthcare Systems, advocates the need to provide clinicians, nurses and physicians with better information management tools in the story, "Patient Safety Study Sounds Alarm, but Action is Now Needed, Experts say." According to Dr. Morgan, while awareness of the issue is growing across the country, it may take more than heightened interest to save the lives of Canadians. "We need to be at the front of the line saying, 'We need an electronic health record, we need physician order entry, we need clinical decision support, we need to make these changes because in the end, it's about doing no harm. Right now, in a paper-based world, we're doing a heck of a lot of harm,'" he says. Patient Safety CHT July article

Drug Topics
The article, "Technology: This N.J. hospital opts for CPOE to reduce med errors," reports that Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood, N.J., with an eye on patient safety requirements established by JCAHO and endorsed by the Leapfrog Group, recently signed an agreement with Misys Healthcare Systems. Misys will provide the 291-bed community hospital with a suite of Misys Optimum offerings, including Misys CPR with CPOE, Misys Data Warehouse, Misys Media Manager, Misys Laboratory and Misys Encompass. Joseph Ascolese, R.Ph., director of pharmacy at Pascack Valley Hospital, says CPOE is at the top of his list. "The percentage of transcription errors is high, and CPOE helps eliminate nurse and pharmacy interpretation," he says. Commenting on the Misys CPR system, Ascolese notes, "From admitting to order entry, it's one smooth consecutive action." The integrated system will allow pharmacists and other healthcare practitioners to share information freely without going through an interface.
 
Hospitals & Health Networks
The story "Technology: Wi-Fi Goes on Sale" spotlights Misys CPR client Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa, Okla. Saint Francis clearly was far ahead of its time in 1999 when it installed wireless technology to identify patient specimens. "We were doing positive patient identification before positive patient identification was cool," says Dave Paulson, manager of clinical systems support at Saint Francis. The 900-bed hospital installed its second-generation wireless data network last year, and now has coverage throughout its main acute care facility and its 160-physician ambulatory clinic.

May 2004
 
Health Data Management
The attached case-study advertorial reports patient safety benefits achieved using Misys CPR's CPOE functionality at the Hospital of Saint Raphael in New Haven, Conn., and the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, specifically Queens Health Network, winner of the 2002 Nicholas E. Davies award. Hospital of Saint Raphael and Queens are early adopters of Misys CPR's electronic order entry to enhance patient safety by reducing errors and increasing communication among all clinical disciplines, across all points of care. "Misys CPR's CPOE Delivers on Patient Safety"
 
March 2004
 
ADVANCE for Health Information Executives
Cover story "The Wired Jungle" reports Misys Healthcare Systems is integrating its Misys CPR clinical information system with wireless and point-of-care documentation mobile devices at two provider sites: Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg, Miss., and Saint Francis Health System in Tulsa, Okla.  The integrated solution includes mobile carts, wireless LANs and wireless transmission of data from point-of-care medical or testing devices. Excerpt: "Physicians and nurses at Forrest General Hospital and Saint Francis Health System find new job satisfaction in wireless technology's ability to reduce paperwork and enable convenient access of patient and clinical data at the point of care whenever or wherever they need it," according to Misys."

Health Management Technology
Gary V. Catarella, corporate director of lab services for Meridian Health, Neptune, N.J., is the author of "Proof of Profitability." According to Catarella, maintaining profitability in the face of competition is not easy. For healthcare in general--and hospital-based labs in particular--it's even harder thanks to prospective payment, DRGs and managed care. To stay afloat, laboratories are competing for new markets such as outreach testing: providing lab services for outpatients, physicians' offices, nursing homes, assisted living facilities and managed care organizations. Located in Neptune, N.J., Jersey Shore University Medical Center (JSUMC) is part of Meridian Health, a leader in the area's delivery of health services, providing services at more than 72 locations, for a total 1,291 acute inpatient, 234 nursing home and 70 rehabilitation beds. Meridian Health performs nearly 2 million laboratory tests each year, half of them at JSUMC, the core laboratory of the system. Using Misys Laboratory for 10 years, Misys Comprehensive Outreach Solutions including the Misys Outreach module, Misys Consulting Services and Misys Encompass, JSUMC is achieving significant growth with its outreach program. Says Catarella, "During the first year of our outreach program, we achieved 15 percent growth in procedures with the addition of eight new physician office groups. In 2002, the outreach program client list rose to 23 and had reached 40 by November 2003. As of the end of 2003, we were 5 percent above our target number of procedures; we have generated $1 million in contributed income."

Health Imaging & IT
The article "RIS: More than Managing Information" quotes Misys Radiology customer Travis Turner, manager of radiology and director of PACS, Catskill Regional Medical Center, a 175-bed facility in Harris, N.Y. Says Turner: "With new technology comes an amount of interfacing that needs to be streamlined and centralized toward the new EMR.  Having a RIS is key to this ultimate integration."

Radiology Today
The March 29th article "Integrating RIS & PACS: Where It is, Where It's Going" depicts the challenge of integrating DICOM-based PACS to exchange data with HL7-based RIS facing software experts working to merge PACS and RIS. Except: "Like many developers leading the integration wave, Misys Healthcare Systems' Kenneth P. Bonner, director of the company's radiology product line, says that "a RIS-centric workflow design allows for optimizing the PACS system and image management."  He emphasizes that Misys Radiology's PACS Integration Module (PIM) acts as an internal "direct translator." Unlike more common broker interfaces, it doesn't replicate data in the two systems -- and it can't be used with any other company's RIS. It does, however, enable integrating one or more other PACS products, using a single RIS without a broker between the two systems. PIM provides DICOM Modality Worklist, accepts Modality Performed Procedure Step messages, manages the patient information reconciliation (traditionally part of the PACS), and performs auto-routing and pre-fetching for any PACS system. The Misys Radiology system RIS and PIM are currently in beta  testing in Sacramento's Sutter General Hospital, linking 15 hospitals and clinics."

HIS Insider Weekly
The attached March 8th article, "Misys CEO Vows: We Will be Among Top 5 Very Soon," details Misys Healthcare Systems Chief Executive Officer Tom Skelton's drive to propel Misys into the big leagues; the Patient1 sale (now rebranded Misys CPR) to support the company's enterprise mission serving the entire continuum of care; the Misys CPR implementation team's "incremental growth approach" to provide clinical decision support, better risk management and earlier physician adoption; and why POH Medical Center, a 328-licensed bed hospital in Pontiac, Mich., tapped Misys CPR over 15 competing systems as told by POH director of clinical informatics Jacqueline Rosenblatt.