BARRINGTON, Ill.--Wednesday, October 21, 2009-- As part of GE's healthymagination commitment, GE Healthcare today announced a new solution that puts clinical data and treatment practices in the hands of doctors and clinicians in real-time so that they can make informed decisions right at the point of care. Developed with Intermountain Healthcare and drawing on its three decades of clinical informatics experience, this computerized decision support solution helps doctors focus on making exceptional treatment decisions based on best practices - thereby helping to improve patient outcomes and efficiency in the clinic, ultimately helping to reduce costs. The pilot launches at Intermountain in November and GE will unveil the full solution at the March meeting of the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS).
Driven by breakthrough technology that enables advanced decision support through collaborations with leading medical institutions, including Intermountain Healthcare and Mayo Clinic, the solution enables even the smallest and most remote healthcare organizations and clinicians to evaluate their current approach to patient care against constantly evolving clinical practice standards. The end result is that patients everywhere may benefit from current treatment options. Prior to this development, the flow of information from "bench to bedside" through traditional means of medical journal publication, continuing education classes and symposia, could take upwards of 17 years1.
"Using information technology and data to help clinicians and hospitals provide excellent and efficient care is a cornerstone of GE's healthymagination initiative to help increase quality and access to healthcare while aiding cost reduction," said Vishal Wanchoo, president and CEO of GE Healthcare IT. "This decision support solution gives doctors the information they need at their finger tips, as they need it, to aid in making informed treatment decisions. Connecting them to proven, research-driven decision support can help improve patient care and save time and money."
Implementing Evidence-based Practice Guidelines
This technology provides customers with the ability to evaluate patient care against quality measures such as those identified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for a variety of health conditions. Once these practices are made available within the system, they can be shared across the health system, enabling community hospitals access to the same evidence-based practices as the world's largest institutions and academic medical centers.
"This is a huge leap forward in healthcare IT," said Marc Probst, chief information officer of Intermountain Healthcare. "By the time this project is fully realized, we will be sharing top quality research that can be put into practice across the globe, helping eliminate unnecessary variation in diagnosis and treatment. This innovation could change the face of patient care as we know it."
Optimizing Patient Management
This technology enables real-time clinical review by capturing vital data from electronic medical records for many patients within a hospital unit on a single screen that signals variation from accepted practice standards, which can cost hospitals and patients both time and money - and sometimes lives. The ability for clinicians to quickly recognize any early warning signs on a single, easy to read, user-friendly screen can help improve efficiency in a hospital, and speed diagnosis and treatment of patients.
ABOUT GE HEALTHCARE:
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.
Our "healthymagination" vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality and efficiency around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $17 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 46,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.
1 Balas & Boren, 2000.