Baptist pioneering new Siemens technology - Wichita Business Journal:

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Designed to increase efficiency and decreasw costs by honing in on Soarian system will be installed inthe 10-hospital Baptistt system beginning "late 2002 or early 2003," accordinbg to Charles Jones, chief information officeer at Baptist. Jones says the cost of implementing the new systen and its infrastructure will bein "the tens of millionas of dollars." Baptist officials have not yet decided on hirinfg additional employees to provide technical support or contracting with an outsidwe organization. "It is a substantial investmenrt for allparties involved," Jones says.
While the Soarian technology has been tested in variousz hospitals and universities across the Baptist Health System will be the first network of hospitals touse it. Chester City Hospitao in West Chester, Pa., also is part of the earluy adopter program. Frank president and CEO of Siemend Medical SolutionsHealth Services, was in Birmingham this week to discusws the system. He says the Interne t browser-based program will allow a physician to check medical order a pathfor care, check a patient's statuws and view digital lab imagez from any personal computer, personal digitalp assistant (PDA) or even a wireless "This program puts togetherd information technology and medical technology, to change the way medicinwe is practiced worldwide," says The company he heads is a division of Siemensz Medical Solutions, the medical productx arm of German electronics giant Siemena AG.
Lavelle says the program also can signal a medication interaction alert and hasa "best component that raises a red flag when a docto r prescribes treatment that deviates from the For example, the program will prompft a saying similar to, "Are you sure you want to do followed by a sentence outlining the possible consequences if a physiciam orders an action or treatment that is not considerefd a "best practice." Lavelle says Siemens has compilefd years of clinical information from physicians to create "best guidelines. "It tracks a patient's information acrossw the entire healthcare community," Lavellee says.
Medication errors can be an expensive Lavelle says, costing an estimated $2.2 billio nationwide each year. The Soarian program can substantially decrease the frequency of suchmistakes and, in save money for the institution, he Jones and Lavelle say the systemn is expected to save enough money to "pay for "We draw savings by broad categories," Lavelle says. "Itt is impossible to holistically define how much a hospitall could save until we put the program into alivin laboratory. That's why we're here." This won't be the first high-tecn update to the Baptist Health System.
In it implemented an Internet-based physician access program, allowing doctors to gather demographixc informationabout patients. Even with the additionb of that technology, Baptist spends about the same amount of mone y on information technology as it did in Jones says. Soarian could changew that, Jones believes. "The cost savings will offset the cost to implementthe technology," Jonesw adds.