Technology will be part of strategy for achieving top 5 percent hospital ranking in quality.
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The Mountain View, Calif.-based, nonprofit community hospital is known for pioneering programs in the areas of cardiac treatment, radiation oncology and noninvasive surgery, and is a leading innovator in the use of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and point-of-care technologies. To continue to make breakthroughs in quality of care, El Camino Hospital recognized the need to implement technologies that leverage existing investments and also provide a flexible foundation for current and future innovation.
El Camino Hospital is using Microsoft Amalga to build a scorecard for evaluating hospital units and individual clinicians in 12 areas of patient care, including cardiovascular, oncological, surgical and obstetric excellence; care of the septic and critically ill patient; care of common severe illnesses; care of the patient with specific needs; patient safety and process control; hospital-acquired infections; patient experience; hospital complications; and efficiency and throughput.
Before implementing Microsoft Amalga, the hospital was unable to integrate data from multiple systems to evaluate performance in each of the 12 areas. Microsoft Amalga will provide one view into all data across the hospital, enabling El Camino to identify areas of improvement, measure progress against annual goals, and drive improvement in group and individual performance.
In addition, El Camino Hospital will use Microsoft Amalga to monitor admitted patients in real time to identify gaps in quality of care. For example, the application will assist bedside clinicians with improving clinical care and will prevent gaps in care for such specific diseases as pneumonia or heart disease.
"Achieving the highest standards in patient care is the single most important goal of El Camino Hospital," said Eric Pifer, M.D., chief medical information officer at El Camino Hospital. "But we cannot reach that goal without the ability to measure our progress against specific quality standards. Amalga allows us to quickly collect, view and analyze data of any type, giving us unprecedented insight into the hospital's performance and greater opportunity to innovate for improved quality."
El Camino Hospital also will use the Microsoft Amalga software to improve operations and throughput when it moves into a new acute care facility in July 2009. Within the larger facility, Microsoft Corp. and El Camino Hospital will build on Amalga to collect and display real-time data on patients moving through the hospital, giving everyone -- including administrators, bed placement supervisors, emergency medicine staff, critical care staff and operating room staff -- the ability to improve the quality, speed and efficiency of their operations. Using Microsoft Amalga, El Camino Hospital will be able to identify patients' physical locations in the facility in real time while simultaneously looking at staffing levels and preventing potential bottlenecks.
"El Camino Hospital holds itself to the highest standards in patient safety and quality of care, and has recognized that improvement in these areas means investing in flexible, innovative and intelligent health solutions," said Steve Shihadeh, vice president, Microsoft Health Solutions Group. "Amalga will allow El Camino Hospital to take a holistic approach to managing data, making better decisions and managing population flow."
Microsoft Amalga addresses a common and critical challenge of healthcare providers -- how to integrate vast amounts of clinical, administrative and financial data that flow in and out of disparate information systems, and how to tailor that information for use by researchers, physicians, analysts, laboratory technicians, nurses and administrators. Amalga takes advantage of health enterprises' investments in existing health IT solutions and makes it possible for the entire organization to gain quick access to data and turn that information into critical knowledge that facilitates better decision- making and improved patient outcomes.
About El Camino Hospital
Located on a 41-acre campus in the heart of Silicon Valley, El Camino Hospital serves residents in the El Camino Hospital District - Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, and portions of Sunnyvale and Palo Alto - as well as those in surrounding communities. Established in 1961, the hospital has delivered the highest level of medical services to the community for more than four decades. Its quality programs and high customer satisfaction rankings have been recognized locally and nationally. In 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008, HealthGrades, a national rating company, named El Camino Hospital a Distinguished Hospital for Clinical Excellence, placing it in the top 5% of hospitals nationwide. El Camino Hospital is the first hospital in the Bay Area to have been designated as a nursing magnet hospital by the American Nursing Credentialing Center. Specialties include cardiac care, dialysis, cancer care, maternal child health services, orthopedics, neurosurgery, minimally invasive surgery and behavioral health. The hospital is also recognized as a national leader in the use of health information technology to promote patient safety, including barcoding, computerized order entry, electronic medical records and wireless communications.
To learn more about El Camino Hospital and its services, visit our web site at http://www.elcaminohospital.org. For a physician referral, visit our web site or call the El Camino Health Line at 800-216-5556.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
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