2008-07-30 23:55:02 -
www.icainformatics.com/ - Vanderbilt Medical Center, the birthplace of technology commercialized by Informatics Corporation of America (ICA; www.icainformatics.com), has been named to the honor roll of America's best hospitals and ranked 15th overall in the survey published in U.S. News and World Report (7/21-28/08). ICA provides clinicians with a single technology solution for accessing, evaluating and acting upon patient information across disparate systems.
Harry Jacobson, M.D., Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs at Vanderbilt, notes, "Our performance in all categories--most importantly in our efficiency of operation and our ability to drive out variability of practice--has been heavily dependent on leveraging the tools ICA provides."
Gary Zegiestowsky, CEO of ICA, adds, "We congratulate Vanderbilt on this prestigious designation and are proud
to be taking our leading edge solution, which was developed over 15 years by physicians and informatics staff at Vanderbilt, to the broader market."
As a result of ICA commercialization initiatives, hospitals and health information exchanges around the country can benefit from Vanderbilt's formula for success. ICA offers a Web-based interactive clinical portal that aggregates data from existing systems to offer a single point of access to a patient's longitudinal record.
Ensuring continuity of care between departments is a significant feature of the ICA solution and one that is cited in the U.S. News article. According to Betty Smith, a Vanderbilt patient, "We love the fact that when you go to Vanderbilt, your records are there...that's No. 1 in my book."
The ICA base aggregation platform can be implemented in about six months, with a focus to give physicians access to complete information and an Internet-like search capability that allows them to drill down to specific data.
Jim Jirjis, M.D., assistant chief medical officer at Vanderbilt, points out, "Physicians need to be able to access the exact information they need when they need it. Over the last eight years, Vanderbilt has built on this platform with tools that align with workflow and the way physicians practice."
The U.S. News article goes on to say that Vanderbilt's nurses, doctors, and patients utilize the ICA messaging tool to transmit an estimated 38,000 messages a week as a means of collaborating, referring patients, storing notes from other clinicians in patients' electronic medical records, and setting follow-up alerts if a patient has not checked a message in a certain number of days.
While tools such as messaging are designed to improve physician efficiency, dashboards are also important in helping hospitals to manage key disease states and elevate the quality of patient care. For example, the U.S. News article notes that Vanderbilt has reduced ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) by 48 percent since activating VAP dashboards across the medical center's intensive care units last fall.
"Hospitals of all sizes can now leverage the power of cutting-edge biomedical informatics to deliver better care," concludes Zegiestowsky. "With our solution, the quality and efficiency advances Vanderbilt has achieved are now possible for many other healthcare enterprises."
ICA's technology is in various stages of implementation at several hospitals and health information exchanges across the country, including Bassett Healthcare's enterprise of five hospitals and 27 clinics in Cooperstown, New York.
About Informatics Corporation of America (ICA)
Informatics Corporation of America (ICA) was created with nationally renowned Vanderbilt Medical Center to take innovative technology developed by Vanderbilt physicians to the broader healthcare market. ICA builds on existing IT systems to offer a single technology solution for accessing, evaluating and acting upon patient information across all treatment settings. Visit www.icainformatics.com
About Vanderbilt Medical Center
Vanderbilt University Medical Center is home to Vanderbilt University Hospital, The Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, the Psychiatric Hospital at Vanderbilt and the Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital. These facilities combined for more than 50,000 inpatient admissions during fiscal year 2008. Vanderbilt's adult and pediatric outpatient clinics treated more than 1.1 million patients during the same period.
CPR for Informatics Corporation of America
Rachael Fisher, 201-641-1911 x49
rfisher@cpronline.com 
