Reynolds Memorial Hospital has become only the fifth hospital in West Virginia to meet federal guidelines for adoption of an electronic health record system. The hospital’s MediTech 6.0 client server system was certified for meaningful use in April.
Electronic health information systems are essential to improving patient care. The federal government encourages hospitals and physicians to adopt this technology, by providing financial incentives to them under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
This project was the culmination of three years of planning and preparation by hospital staff. The MediTech information system will streamline processes, improve communication, and increase patient safety. The system helps staff react more quickly to changes in a patient’s condition, by automatically notifying appropriate personnel of important diagnostic information. It will also diminish errors in medication administration through the use of bar-code identification.
All clinicians will benefit from using MediTech across the care continuum, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, radiology, laboratory, and other clinical personnel. All applications are fully integrated into an enterprise system, facilitating the seamless exchange of demographic, clinical, and financial information across departments and care teams.
The new system will also allow authorized users to access clinical information from any location. Doctors can even receive alerts and order tests remotely from a portable device. All of this is accomplished with maximum security of patient medical information through user-defined access.
MediTech is short for Medical Information Technology, a company that began with a federal grant in 1967 to develop a computer system for Massachusetts General Hospital. Today, MediTech is the leading provider of enterprise software to hospitals, with over 25 percent of US hospitals using MediTech software, about twice that of any other vendor.
Warren Kelley, chief information officer at Reynolds, said, "It is nice to be the most technologically advanced hospital in this region. However, our more important concern is our patients. They deserve the best we have to offer."