9.4 million beneficiaries of Military Health System

Planned Systems International (PSI), a provider of information technology (IT) solutions and services to the federal government, has been awarded a task order by the Defense Health Information Management System (DHIMS) Program Office to provide operations and maintenance support to AHLTA-Theater (AHLTA-T), the military’s electronic health record for the Military Theater environment. The task order has a total value of $8.3 million if all options are exercised.

AHLTA-T maintains a comprehensive, computer-based patient record for every soldier, sailor, airman, marine, and beneficiary entitled to DoD military healthcare in theater of operations. Under this task order, PSI and its team members, Evolvent and ASM Research, will provide maintenance, sustainment and support services, which will improve system speed, reliability, data quality, and usability of currently existing AHLTA-T products. The new functionalities will improve patient safety and quality of care for approximately 9.4 million beneficiaries of the Military Health System (MHS) TRICARE Program.

$13.5 million at U.S. Defense Supply Center

OSI Systems’ Healthcare Division, Spacelabs Healthcare, has been awarded a $13.5 million Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract from the U.S. Defense Supply Center Philadelphia Medical Supplier Operations Directorate to provide patient monitoring systems, sub-systems, training and consumables.

Verification solutions in Florida

Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) of Florida has chosen Medversant Technologies’ OneSource Web-based credentials verification solutions in an effort to streamline administrative processes, reduce costs, and gain real-time access to continuously verified provider information. OneSource automates physician credentials verification and allows the records to be viewed in real time through a Web-based platform that is updated and available 24/7. The technology allows for transparency, which is critical for the full outsourcing of this important business process. Provider data is continuously monitored and updated, and includes an automatic status alert when changes occur.

$3.9 million upfront for resuscitation devices

ZOLL Medical Corporation, a manufacturer of resuscitation devices and related software solutions, has been awarded a contract for Airworthy CCT defibrillators by the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency. If fully exercised, the potential revenue from the contract could approximate $30 million. The services that can order units against this contract are Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and federal civilian agencies. The Department of Defense will provide an upfront payment of $3.9 million for ZOLL to procure parts to build units to comply with inventory requirements.

$8.1 million award by DoD

EDS has signed an $8.1 million, 12-month add-on contract with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Military Health System to make technical enhancements to several Defense Health Information Management Systems (DHIMS). The work will improve the quality and delivery of healthcare for recovering U.S. service members under the DoD Wounded Warrior care initiative. The Military Health System is the largest health maintenance organization in the world, composed of a vast team of healthcare providers, medical educators and medical researchers serving at health facilities and in the field worldwide. More than 60,000 trained users operate DHIMS applications to capture, manage and share data across the DoD.

Emergency management solution

Upp Technology will provide a centralized emergency management solution to the Tennessee Department of Health that will improve the availability of patient information and the efficiency of an emergency response. Already utilizing Upp’s irms|Go-Kits, to provide mobile emergency response solutions, Tennessee is now looking to add a centralized server to link the Go-Kits together in the field. This centralized approach is designed to provide accurate, reliable, and responsive patient tracking, inventory management and distribution of critical resources during an emergency.

University Medical Center selects Lawson

Oklahoma State University Medical Center has selected the Lawson S3 Enterprise Financial Management and Supply Chain Management suites. These software suites will help the healthcare provider automate its business and supply inventory processes and improve efficiencies – all geared toward helping the organization reduce operating costs. (Craig McKnight, chief financial officer for Oklahoma State University Medical Center.)

Critical marketing tool for hospitals

With 75 percent of the U.S. population and nearly 100 percent of physicians being online, the web is a critical marketing tool for hospitals. Emerson Hospital selected brand communications firm PARTNERS+simons to develop a next-generation website to both underscore the hospital’s dedication to its patients and to build its brand online. Emerson Hospital is a 179-bed hospital providing advanced medical services to more than 300,000 individuals in 25 towns. The PARTNERS+simons assignment includes developing new content and functionality to enhance the Emerson experience for patients, visitors, and referring physicians. (Bonnie Kaplan Goldsmith, Senior Director, Public Affairs, Marketing and Communications for Emerson.)

Integrated Digital Surgical Suites

Massachusetts General Hospital has selected BDV to integrate their state-of-the-art Integrated Digital Surgical Suites (IDSS) video and audio solution into their new operating rooms and vascular hybrid suites. The IDSS will enhance the quality and efficiency of care delivered by the Massachusetts General Hospital’s surgical, nursing, radiology, pathology and clinical engineering teams by providing high-resolution video routing, audio routing, multi-windowing, printing, recording and video streaming.

Improved its financial performance by $12 million

Using Contract Management and Decision Support analytics tools from MedAssets, Fletcher Allen Health Care improved its financial performance by approximately $12 million in 2008 through better management of its managed care payors. The tools have assisted the hospital in securing $8.3 million in new cash flow from more favorable contract negotiations based on thorough contract analysis that identified project variances. In addition, the Company’s Contract Management tool helped the hospital identify and collect $3.7 million in payor underpayments by identifying and validating discrepancies between contract terms and actual payor payments. (Todd Moore, Vice President, Revenue Cycle, Fletcher Allen Health Care.)

Talent acquisition strategy software

University of Pennsylvania Health Systems (UPHS) will be implementing the Peopleclick® Recruitment Management System (RMS) and Peopleclick® Onboarding as an integral part of their talent acquisition strategy. UPHS is the oldest, leading health system in the country with over 13,000 employees providing extensive programs such as research, neuroscience, genetics, cardiovascular treatment and oncology.

Wireless for mission- and life-critical applications

Virginia Hospital Center will deploy InnerWireless’ Horizon Converged Wireless solution across 1.1 million square feet in three buildings on its campus to ensure wireless connectivity for mission- and life-critical applications. Horizon, also known as a distributed antenna system (DAS), delivers virtually every wireless service including 3G smartphones, Wi-Fi, medical telemetry, fire/life/safety, pagers and two-way radios. (David Crutchfield, VP and CIO of Virginia Hospital Center.)

Medication solution

In its ongoing pursuit to deliver the best quality of care to its patients, Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital (PIH), a 444-bed acute care facility has activated Eclipsys’ Sunrise Pharmacy medication solution. By replacing paper processes with a centralized pharmacy information system, PIH also initiated a system-wide electronic medication record (eMAR) to support enhanced communication, speed and accuracy in dispensing patient medications. The implementation marks a critical step towards a closed loop medication process and builds upon the community hospital’s successful adoption of Eclipsys’ computerized physician order entry (CPOE) solution last year. With 300 active physician users, PIH cites CPOE adoption rates of approximately 99 percent. (Dr. Alan Endo, PIH’s director of Pharmacy.)

Newborn Hearing Screening Data Management

Natus Medical has been awarded a contract to provide its Newborn Hearing Screening Data Management Service to the California Department of Health Care Services. Natus will provide web-based software designed by its Neometrics division to all birthing hospitals in California and the state’s Hearing Coordination Centers. The contracted service will assist users in managing hearing screening data and provide training, tracking, and monitoring capabilities to ensure infants with hearing loss are linked with appropriate treatment and services. www.natus.com.

Governance consulting services and development

Misys Open Source Solutions has reached an agreement with Allscripts and Hartford HealthCare to provide governance consulting services and development for the technology infrastructure that will provide the newly formed Transforming Healthcare in Connecticut Communities (THICC) -- a coalition of Connecticut’s major hospitals, healthcare facilities and physician practices – with interconnected, on-demand access to patient information. Scheduled for production release in early 2010, Misys will deliver the nation’s largest open source health exchange and the state’s first health information exchange. THICC will improve healthcare delivery through secure, authorized and electronic patient information sharing. Using an open source, standards-based approach is expected to help promote interoperability between THICC, participating healthcare facilities and physicians who may be using disparate electronic health record systems, so that documents may be shared between THICC members and others participating in the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) – a technology architecture that is part of President Obama’s goal to create a system of digital medical records by 2014 or earlier. (Stephan O’Neill, Vice President, Information Services, Hartford HealthCare.)

Infrastructure services for animal health company

Savvis, Inc., provider of outsourced internet infrastructure services for the enterprise, has an agreement to provide a range of services to Merial, a leading, innovation-driven animal health company. Under the terms of the three year, multimillion dollar agreement, Savvis will develop and deploy colocation and managed hosting, network and professional services, and managed security services for Merial’s global operations. (Mark Worrel, executive director, global infrastructure, Merial.)

Telecommunications and data infrastructure services

Black Box Corporation, a provider of voice communications, data infrastructure, and product solutions, has been awarded a telecommunications and data infrastructure services and technology product agreement from Premier Purchasing Partners, LP., the group purchasing unit of Premier, Inc. The agreement is available to acute care and continuum of care members of the Premier healthcare alliance. The Premier healthcare alliance is comprised of more than 2,100 U.S. hospitals and 58,000 healthcare sites working together to improve healthcare quality and affordability.

Productivity, benchmarking and outcomes

The National Institutes of Health Clinical Center (NIH Clinical Center) has selected QuadraMed AcuityPlus productivity, benchmarking and outcomes system to optimize its nursing resources enterprise-wide. NIH's hospital purchased the AcuityPlus platform, which includes inpatient, ambulatory and mental health methodologies, outcomes module, and import and export features, to help ensure interoperability with existing ADT and staff scheduling systems. The solution suite provides data analysis and monitoring to determine efficient staffing and budget projection and management, as well as a reporting module for true acuity-adjusted benchmarking.

The Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the nation's largest hospital devoted entirely to clinical research. It is a national resource that makes it possible to rapidly translate scientific observations and laboratory discoveries into new approaches for diagnosing, treating, and preventing disease. Through clinical research, physician-investigators translate laboratory discoveries into better treatments, therapies and interventions to improve the nation's health. http://clinicalcenter.nih.gov.

Nursing home increased business efficiencies

Advocat, a provider of long-term services to nursing home patients has increased business efficiencies through UltiPro’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery, reporting capabilities, and access for remote HR/payroll staff since implementing UltiPro in 2006. Before UltiPro, Advocat used a payroll solution designed for healthcare that was not equipped to handle the organization’s large workforce and complex pay rules. Relying on spreadsheets for its payroll and employee-related reporting, Advocat began to experience inefficiencies and problems with data integrity. Advocat selected Ultimate’s SaaS offering to eliminate these issues and free its IT team from the workload related to the hardware and system maintenance for its HR/payroll technology. (Susan Shires, director of payroll and taxes for Advocat.) www.ultimatesoftware.com.

Hospital supply chain and contracts & analysis

University of South Alabama Hospitals (USA), including USA Medical Center and USA Children’s and Women’s Hospital, implemented MediClick for the Supply Chain and MediClick for Contracts & Analysis (C&A). The MediClick supply chain solutions provide a holistic view of supply chain activity across its facilities so USA can track the entire materials management process. C&A ensures purchase orders always go out with the accurate contract price, meaning accounts payable and buyers have fewer errors to reconcile on the backend. MediClick also reduces manual intervention so USA can dedicate more time to strategic decision making.(Bill Bush, CFO at USA.) Lee Kopf, director of materials management at USA.) www.mediclick.com. www.usahospitals.org.