McKesson Offers New Options With Horizon Cardiology To Reduce Costs And Ensure High Availability Systems
McKesson has announced that the Horizon Cardiology cardiovascular information system (CVIS) now offers hosted storage solutions for data protection, archive and disaster recovery, in addition to virtualized server solutions for reduced operating costs and increased patient information availability. These new options are extensions to Horizon Cardiology CVIS version 12.1, a single-database CVIS, which can be seen during the American College of Cardiology 2010 Annual Scientific Session March 14-16, in Atlanta.
Server virtualization is an innovative solution for the cardiology department from McKesson, made available in partnership with VMware®. The solution simplifies IT deployment and maintenance, reduces operating costs, and improves system availability for these patient-critical systems. One of the early adopters of McKesson's virtualized CVIS is Cooper University Hospital (CUH), a facility serving patients throughout southern New Jersey and the Delaware Valley.
Faced with the challenges of balancing business growth with cost containment, CUH developed a strategic road map for its IT Infrastructure by using standardized architecture based on virtualization. Through virtualization, CUH's commitment to going green was achieved by reducing the space needed for IT hardware, electricity, and cooling; which also translated into reduced operating and capital expenses that in turn could be reinvested into the business of providing superior patient care.
"McKesson's willingness and commitment to embracing emerging technologies and partnering with us on making the most efficient use of our enterprise IT architecture was as important in selecting Horizon Cardiology as the cardiologists' selection of the software." said Michael Sinno, chief information officer for Cooper University Hospital. "Their system addressed our two major goals – the need for improved workflow and the need to leverage the advantages of our enterprise IT architecture."
In addition to virtualization, Horizon Cardiology now offers secure, state-of-the-art patient record archiving and disaster recovery services, powered by Iron Mountain's Digital Record Center® for Medical Images, a cloud storage service for backing up and archiving digital medical information. Customers avoid the capital expenditures and the management overhead inherent in managing back-up and long-term archiving. This provides hospitals with a seamless and automated patient image archiving and protection solution, optimizing their storage, removing data management responsibilities and providing reliable back-up and quick, secure recovery strategies in the event of a device failure or other disaster.
"We pride ourselves in developing innovative clinical applications for the benefit of cardiologists, while also supporting healthcare IT departments that are keeping pace with rapid advances in technology," said Rod O'Reilly, president, Medical Imaging Group, McKesson Provider Technologies. "Our latest CVIS offering gives cardiologists the tools they need to improve their cardiovascular workflow while providing healthcare institutions with solid archiving and disaster recovery tools and the undeniable cost benefits of virtualization."
By providing a single platform for cardiovascular image review and archiving, procedure reporting and workflow management, McKesson's Horizon Cardiology CVIS makes it easier for healthcare organizations to reduce costs and improve patient care. Information is automatically captured throughout the treatment process, providing the ability to analyze operations and measure the quality of care. Through McKesson's IT-focused strategy, organizations are able to realize operational gains across the medical imaging enterprise.
About McKesson
McKesson Corporation, currently ranked 15th on the FORTUNE 500, is a healthcare services and information technology company dedicated to helping its customers deliver high-quality healthcare by reducing costs, streamlining processes, and improving the quality and safety of patient care. McKesson has been in continuous operation for more than 175 years, making it the longest-operating company in healthcare today. Over the course of its history, McKesson has grown by providing pharmaceutical and medical-surgical supply management across the spectrum of care; healthcare information technology for hospitals, physicians, homecare and payors; hospital and retail pharmacy automation; and services for manufacturers and payors designed to improve outcomes for patients. For more information, visit http://www.mckesson.com.
SOURCE: McKesson