Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 46 | Page 62

CASE STUDY pride to have partnered with them in their digitalisation journey. Implementation of an integrated EHR solution is a significant milestone in this massive enterprise-wide project and a tremendous testament to the dedicated clinical teams and IT professionals who have worked together seamlessly to support the shared vision for excellent patient care.” Martin Kopp, Global General Manager of Healthcare Providers at SAP, said: “Patient expectations in today’s experience economy along with available intelligent technologies are creating new opportunities for health care providers to take a leadership role in delivering value-creating, affordable services. Digitising every aspect of the health care value chain will help organisations shift focus from providing volume services to improving the individual patient’s quality of life.” Tim Hawkins, Managing Director, Clinical Solutions EMEALAAP at Elsevier, said: “We are delighted to be entering into a strategic partnership with globally recognised health technology providers to deliver fully integrated Order Sets and Care Planning into Abdali Medical Center’s EHR and ERP systems. The push to digitise workflows is an exciting step for Abdali Medical Center that will deliver the highest standards of patient care.” Intelligent CIO asked Paul Casterton, Chief Information Officer at Abdali Medical Center, further questions about the implementation. Can you explain the main benefits of Cerner’s clinical information system i.s.h.med? The combination with SAP’s ISH and Cerner’s i.s.h.med applications provide a comprehensive Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and a platform that automates the complete care process from first contact with the patient all the way through to final discharge and billing. The solution provides functionality to automate all aspects of clinical care with integrated clinical decision support that provides our physicians with real time alerts to enhance the care that they provide. The result is that the right data gets to the right person at the right time which is critical to high quality care provision. Can you explain how activating Cerner’s electronic health record (EHR) platform is supporting the safety and confidentiality of patients’ information? As custodians of patients electronic data we have a duty to make sure that only those individuals that are authorised to have access, in the context of direct care delivery, have access. Using the SAP/i.s.h.med platform we are able to enforce a strict, robust and best-practice security model, including comprehensive audit trails, that far surpasses what would otherwise be possible without our EMR. OUR IMPLEMENTATION OF SAP AND CERNER’S INTEGRATED SUITE OF ERP AND EHR APPLICATIONS IN CONJUNCTION WITH ELSEVIER’S CARE PLANNING SOLUTION PROVIDES ABDALI MEDICAL CENTER WITH THE ABILITY TO TRULY AUTOMATE OUR END-TO-END CLINICAL AND BUSINESS PROCESSES. 62 INTELLIGENTCIO Can you explain how the solutions have automated the hospital’s end-to-end clinical and business processes? The EMR is at the centre of our health care architecture and is interfaced to our other specialist solution (e.g. picture archiving and communication system, laboratory information system, etc.) using SAP’s integration middleware to ensure that our care providers always have the data that they require. In almost all cases our interfaces follow national electronic data interchange standards e.g. HL7, DICOM, etc. How will data be used to report and improve patient outcomes? As a by-product of automating the care process we will have access to data which will be analysed to monitor and transform the way that we deliver care and to underpin our commitment to deliver world-class cost-effective care. We will be extensively leveraging real-time activity data to inform our executives and clinicians and to make sure that the patient experience is proactively monitored and optimised. In addition, we will be monitoring patient outcomes and will have the ability to objectively analyse what went well and what did not, which will be invaluable in establishing best practice value base care for all of our patients. Can you explain the benefits of Cerner’s CareAware VitalsLink and Cerner Multum solutions? Cerner’s CareAware Vitalslink solution is providing us with the ability to efficiently and safely integrate the ever-increasing amount of electronic data fed from our extensive range of medical devices, in to the EMR. The result will be less time spent by care providers manually documenting in to the EMR and ultimately more accurate, timely and complete documentation. In addition, we have implemented the Cerner Multum clinical support solution which checks, in real-time, medication orders being placed by the physicians and warns of potential conflicts such as allergic reactions, drug to drug interactions, etc. n www.intelligentcio.com