If a connected health care marketplace becomes a reality, the U.S. could save up to $30 billion a year. Luckily, there are intelligent systems partners that are making that happen.
The Windows Embedded blog reports that the “West Health Institute, a medical research organization, has identified the lack of medical device interoperability — the ability of medical devices and health care systems to seamlessly communicate and exchange information — as one source of high health care costs.”
The blog post focuses on Omnicell, which has “built an intelligent platform for its solutions that provides interoperability between electronic health care record (EHR) applications and Omnicell’s automated medication dispensing cabinets.”
Jennifer George, director of channel marketing at Omnicell, gave an example of how the problems that led to their solution.
“Formerly, if a nurse was looking at clinical information within the EHR and then needed to administer medications to patients, he or she would have to walk to the automated dispensing cabinet (ADC),” George says. “After logging on to the ADC, the nurse could access the patient medication data to validate the prescription or check for any updates, and then remove the needed medications. However, while at the ADC, the nurse could not readily access information, such as lab values, from the EHR. This lack of connection between the EHR and ADC creates extra steps and can lead to safety issues.”
But now, “A nurse can now open the Omnicell application from within the EHR,” says George. “The nurse can confirm the medications to be administered to each patient, make sure lab values are in line with what they should be, check for any safety issues and then remotely issue the medications, which will be queued at the cabinet. This streamlined workflow lowers costs, since it’s faster, more efficient and safer.”
Participants at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society annual conference in Orlando, Fla., Feb. 23–27 can find out more about this intelligent system at the Microsoft or the Omnicell booths.
And if you can't be there, check out the Windows Embedded blog.
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Athima Chansanchai
Microsoft News Center Staff