CLEVELAND -- University Hospitals (UH) has received two national information technology awards for its FirstGateways™ Physician Portal, an electronic data bank for UH clinicians system-wide, which acts as a one-stop haven for patient data.
UH was one of only three health systems nationally to receive the 2007 Most Wired Innovator Award for innovation in information technology. Most Wired is a quarterly national publication that highlights information technology practices that help solve strategic problems in health care.
UH also was selected to receive the CIO 100 Award for excellence and achievement in information technology. This prestigious award is presented to 100 companies nationwide by CIO. CIO is a semi-monthly national publication, which provides information executives, their partners and their companies with real-life, in-depth information on what their peers at other organizations are doing to leverage information technology for business advantage.
The Physician Portal allows UH clinicians and select non-UH entities, such as long-term care facilities and federally qualified health clinics, to access comprehensive medical information on more than 700,000 patients, 24x7 from anywhere in the world. The portal’s benefits include improved patient care, safety and efficiency as clinicians have instantaneous access to medication and allergy information and are able to communicate test results to patients more quickly.
“Patients no longer need to retell their medical history again and again because all of that information is now accessible to physicians with a click of a mouse,” says Edward Marx, chief information officer for University Hospitals. “Additionally, the information is available system-wide so that a physician at one UH facility can assess the information for a patient admitted at another UH facility.”
Before the Physician Portal, physicians relied on multiple data resources, and physicians at one hospital could not access patient data from other institutions within University Hospitals. Since patients are commonly transferred across the health system, the Physician Portal improves information transfer and prevents duplicate tests for patients.
Patients can also feel secure in knowing that the portal is a highly secured environment with only authorized individuals allowed access.
Other medical information housed in the portal includes patient demographic data with laboratory results, diagnosis information, PACS images, names of physicians involved in the care of each patient and medical transcriptions. The portal also provides clinicians with news and information, continuing medical education (CME), research, library resources, e-mail, medical staff administrative applications and policies and procedures.
UH also is developing a patient offshoot of the Physician Portal so that patients can access their own medical information.
With 150 locations throughout Northeast Ohio, University Hospitals serves the needs of patients through an integrated network of hospitals, outpatient centers and primary care physicians. At the core of our Health System is University Hospitals Case Medical Center. The primary affiliate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, University Hospitals Case Medical Center is home to some of the most prestigious clinical and research centers of excellence in the nation and the world, including cancer, pediatrics, women's health, orthopedics and spine, radiology and radiation oncology, neurosurgery and neuroscience, cardiology and cardiovascular surgery, organ transplantation and human genetics. Its main campus includes the internationally celebrated Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, ranked best in the Midwest and first in the nation for the care of critically ill newborns; MacDonald Women's Hospital, Ohio's only hospital for women; and Ireland Cancer Center, which holds the nation's highest designation by the National Cancer Institute of Comprehensive Cancer Center. For more information, go to www.uhhospitals.org