2008-11-14 22:42:43 - Web-based clinical alert system helped improve quality and financial performance

Bellevue, Wash. -- Pharmacy OneSource, Inc., software as a service provider to more than 1,200 hospitals in the United States, announced that Providence Health & Services was awarded an Innovation Award yesterday by VHA Inc., the national healthcare alliance, for their use of Sentri7.

A multidisciplinary team consisting of members representing Pharmacy, Lab, Quality and Safety, and Information Services undertook an

initiative to implement Sentri7, a rules-based clinical decision support tool, to help identify opportunities to improve care and avoid adverse drug events. The team developed, implemented, and measured the impact of Sentri7 at the two sites successfully and demonstrated a significant impact on quality and financial indicators.

'Sentri7 is an excellent example of how advanced information technology simultaneously can promote enhanced clinical quality and reduced costs, addressing two significant strategic goals for Providence. It provides intelligent monitoring and sensing, working on top of our systems and processing data real time to support clinical practice. The Application Service Provider (ASP) delivery method puts low demands on IS. The most significant work is to design and maintain interfaces, and the pilot provided good insight into McKesson and MEDITECH data exchanges,' said John Jay Kenagy, PhD, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Providence Health & Services.

Sentri7 by Pharmacy OneSource combines medication, laboratory and patient data to facilitate earlier, better and more consistent interventions that can lead to shorter lengths of stay, lower costs, improved patient safety and reduced antibiotic resistance.

'We have been able to document significant strides in quality improvement and patient safety using Sentri7 by being able to leverage expertise of the pharmacists. With the help of this tool we can more efficiently identify, prevent and resolve medication-related issues. That results in better therapy for the patient, greater success at meeting quality indicators and significant improvement in patient safety by identifying potential and actual medication errors,' said Steve Pickette, System Manager of Pharmacy Clinical Services for Providence Health & Services.

The VHA West Coast Performance Awards program has four major award categories which include recognition for clinical, non-clinical, team work and individual performance--each category has many subcategories. VHA West Coast recognized Providence Health & Services and other winning hospitals for their individual improvement efforts and for their use of VHA resources to drive improvements at the VHA West Coast fall conference, held Nov. 13-15 in Newport Beach, Calif.

More information about Sentri7 can be found at: www.sentri7.com.

About Pharmacy OneSource (www.pharmacyonesource.com)
Pharmacy OneSource is pharmacy's #1 Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider. Our more than 60 innovative team members provide best-in-class, SaaS solutions to current and future challenges within health-system pharmacy worldwide. Our SaaS solutions contribute to high performance pharmacy through better outcomes, lower costs and system-wide results. More than 1,200 healthcare organizations worldwide utilize our HIPAA compliant web-based services: Accupedia, Amplifi, Quantifi, ScheduleRx, Sentri7, Simplifi 797, and UnitStock.

About Providence Health & Services (www.providence.org)
Providence Health & Services is a not-for-profit organization that provides health care, senior and community services, housing and education facilities in communities throughout five states - Alaska, Washington, Montana, Oregon and California. The ministry includes 29 hospitals, more than 35 non-acute facilities, physician clinics, a health plan, a liberal arts university, a high school, approximately 47,000 employees and numerous other health, housing and educational services.

Providence Health & Services in Alaska, Washington and Oregon is sponsored by the Sisters of Providence religious community. In Southern California the health ministry is co-sponsored by the Sisters of Providence and the Little Company of Mary.