FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wyoming Hospital Selects Medsphere OpenVista® Electronic Health Record
Third Adoption in a Month for Commercial VistA-Based System
NEW ORLEANS, LA (HIMSS07 Conference, February 26, 2007) - Medsphere Systems Corporation, the leading provider of professional open source-based electronic health record (EHR) systems and services, today announced a five-year agreement to deploy its OpenVista® EHR platform at Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County (MHSC) in Rock Springs, Wyoming. The 99-bed not-for-profit facility is the third community hospital to adopt OpenVista's paperless system in the last month.
MHSC will implement OpenVista as part of a broad information technology initiative designed to support local population growth as well as a major hospital facility and services expansion that began last year. The deployment will also place the hospital at the forefront of a statewide EHR movement being driven by the Wyoming Healthcare Commission.
OpenVista is a commercial implementation of VistA, the highly regarded EHR developed and used by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs for over two decades, that incorporates software enhancements tailored to the needs of non-VA healthcare providers. MHSC is deploying the Medsphere platform under a commercial license that includes professional services, training, ongoing product upgrades, and 24x7 technical support without the expensive license fees of proprietary products.
"We are making a major investment to strengthen our services to the local community, and moving to a paperless health record is a cornerstone of that effort," said Linda Simmons, Chief Nursing Officer of Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County. "OpenVista gives us a proven, cost-effective solution that will equip our staff with better information for making clinical decisions, enhance patient safety, and help us handle growth of the area population over the next few years."
"Until recently, community hospitals like MHSC have been largely unable to make the transition to electronic health records because of the cost. OpenVista is removing that barrier by leveraging the VA's many years of VistA development and documented improvement in healthcare outcomes to deliver an affordable solution that is backed by professional services and technical support," said Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer, Chairman and CEO of Medsphere Systems. "This has broad implications for improving the overall quality of patient care in this country."
MHSC will implement the entire OpenVista platform, including computerized physician order entry, barcode medication administration, patient information management, pharmacy, laboratory and radiology applications as well as a clinical information system enabling computerized order entry by the hospital's lab, pharmacy, radiology, respiratory, physical therapy and dietary departments.
Together, these systems will provide an integrated view of orders, test results and medications for a given patient, yielding better information for physicians, fewer duplicate tests and prescription errors, faster handling of test orders, more accurate medication tracking, and a complete audit trail for clinical charges.
Medsphere will help deploy the system and provide the software and professional services required to interface OpenVista with other applications, including a new patient registration, billing and financial system that is expected to replace MHSC's legacy platform in the near future.
The OpenVista implementation at Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County will begin immediately.
About Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County
Founded as a coal miners' hospital in 1892, Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County is a non-profit, 99-bed, rural acute care facility located in Rock Springs in southwest Wyoming. It provides medical, surgical, obstetrical, pediatric and critical care with more than 18,000 emergency room visits annually, and is the only hospital in a radius of 100 miles. The hospital is currently undergoing a major renovation and expansion that will add approximately 54,000 square feet of space and improvements in existing healthcare services. For more information, visit http://minershospital.org.About Medsphere Systems Corporation
As the Open Source source for healthcare, Medsphere is revolutionizing the industry by delivering commercially supported software based on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' proven VistA electronic health record (EHR). Medsphere offers healthcare an economically sustainable and comprehensive solution in OpenVista®, a portfolio of products and professional services for hospitals, clinics, and integrated delivery networks. The company addresses the capital constraints of the healthcare industry through an innovative subscription-based pricing model. Medsphere's experienced team of healthcare technology professionals and unique suite of implementation tools deliver a fluid transition to a comprehensive healthcare information technology solution. Founded in 2002, Medsphere is backed financially by Azure Capital Partners, Thomas Weisel Venture Partners, and the Wasatch Venture Fund. For more information, visit www.medsphere.com.Contacts
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Corporate: Rick Jung Chief Operating Officer Medsphere Systems Corporation (949) 297-8182 office rick.jung@medsphere.com |
Media: Marisa Borgasano Schwartz Communications (415) 512-0770 (office) medsphere@schwartz-pr.com |