By MARK TODD - Staff Writer - mtodd@starbeacon.com
GENEVA — Geneva Medical Center will be the first facility in the massive University Hospital system to launch a $100 million records program aimed at improving patient safety,
The new electronic medical record is a computerized medical chart that will instantly provide UH doctors with the patient’s health background, no matter where they go within the UH system. Patients, too, will be allowed to update their records.
“Once you enter the UH system, we can follow your care all along the way,” said Dr. Amitabh Goel, a general surgeon. “It’s seamless.”
The EMR, in the planning stages since 2006, launches at GMC June 30, and will be implemented at other locations over the next few years, hospital and UH officials said Monday morning. Staff training at Geneva began earlier this year.
GMC will join a very small number of hospitals with such a system. Only 8 percent of hospitals in the country have such a medical database.
Geneva was picked to debut the program partly because of the staff’s willingness to embrace the concept, said Mary Alice Annecharico, senior vice president for information technology and solutions. The hospital’s high marks in patient involvement also was a plus.
“We look at (EMR) as a way to differentiate ourselves,” said Robert David, president at GMC and UH Conneaut Medical Center.
UH medical information that predates the EMR will be scanned into the new system, officials said.
EMR has many advantages, with patient safety the most important, Goel said. Current information about the patient will help a UH physician make good decisions regarding medication and treatment, he said.
The system was built specifically for UH and reflects the medical standards in place across the system, David said.
While some electronic tracking was previously available to UH staff, the new system offers extra advantages, such as test result-recording, documenting notes from patient visits, prescribing and tracking doses of medications and listing allergies.
The latter feature is a key component, allowing a patient to access their record and add information they feel may assist their doctor. “It opens up avenues of communication,” Annecharico said.
EMR will come to Conneaut Medical Center in fall 2010, she said.
