News Feature | September 24, 2013

Integrating Acute-Care Based Solution With EHR

Source: Health IT Outcomes

By Wendy Grafius, contributing writer

Riverside Health System believes integration will bring real-time clinical decision to support bedside and underscores innovative approach to patient care

Riverside Health System, of eastern Virginia, has selected PeraTrend as a real-time clinical decision support tool, becoming the first healthcare system to integrate the acute-care based solution with Siemen’s Soarian EHR. As a founding member of the PeraHealth Soarian Collaborative, Riverside and other hospitals utilizing Soarian will share best practices and research and development opportunities related to PeraTrend.

Hospitals & Health Networks' annual Most Wired Survey named Riverside Health System one of the nation’s Most Wired health systems for the ninth year in row earlier this year. “Riverside has consistently been named ‘Most Wired' because it invested early on in promising, worthwhile technology and continues to do so," said Dennis Loftus, Senior Vice President/Chief Information Officer for Riverside Health System.

The leading provider of healthcare in a 13-county area, Riverside Health System comprises five hospitals, of which Riverside Regional Medical Center of Newport News, VA, has evolved since 1915 into the 450-bed flagship. The non-profit integrated network includes multiple specialty hospitals, surgery centers, physician practices, cancer centers, home care and hospice, and wellness centers as well as retirement communities, a convalescent center, and adult day services for area senior citizens. Riverside is affiliated with seven colleges/universities within the area and is the only health system member of the Medical Society of Virginia (MSV) that holds a voting seat in the MSV House of Delegates.

The health system has been “focused aggressively on several key areas: practicing evidenced-based care, reducing costs, improving patient satisfaction, reducing harm, and saving lives,” said Barry Gross, M.D., Riverside EVP and Chief Medical Officer. “We believe the real-time clinical decision support of PeraTrend integrated into Soarian will accelerate our performance as a QUEST member, and bring further value to our Soarian investment.”

PeraTrend leverages existing EHR data in order to improve real-time clinical decision making for care providers.  The solution pulls labs, vitals, and nursing assessments, applies the data to PeraTrend’s innovative Rothman Index algorithm, and generates color-coded graphs which display a patient’s trended condition over time. Declining patient status can be flagged earlier, in order to intervene and present new care options. “Integrating PeraTrend into the Soarian platform will not only bring real-time clinical decision support to the bedside, but will also underpin a number of strategic initiatives across Riverside and underscores the system’s innovative approach to patient care,” said Stephanie Alexander, Chief Executive Officer, PeraHealth, Inc., of Charlotte, NC.

SOURCE: Business Wire