4medica,
the leading independent provider of Web-based connectivity between
physicians and clinical laboratories, today announced the launch of its Integrated
Health Record (IHR™), which includes modular components
designed to enable hospitals and eligible providers to demonstrate
“meaningful use” and qualify for federal government incentives in 2011.
A multisource, patient-centric medical record, the IHR
unites data across diverse care settings to give physicians quick access
to a complete picture of the individual patient at critical decision
points. 4medica will demonstrate the debut of its IHR at booth #8647 at
the annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)
conference, March 1–4 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.
“The architecture and capabilities of our IHR point the way toward a new
kind of patient record that is more usable and sharable than the
traditional electronic health records (EHRs)”
“The architecture and capabilities of our IHR point the way toward a new
kind of patient record that is more usable and sharable than the
traditional electronic health records (EHRs),”
said Ravi Sharma, president and CEO of 4medica. “Because of the
meaningful use criteria, greater emphasis is being placed on
interoperability and connectivity, both of which are lacking in
conventional EHRs.”
Sharma continued, “Preparing legacy applications for meaningful use will
be a major undertaking for most EHR companies. Those that cannot will
wither away in the next few years. Those that are successful will start
migrating to the Web and will use an architecture resembling 4medica’s
IHR to incorporate patient-centric data from legacy systems at multiple
locations. These solutions will help physicians and hospitals transition
to clinical information systems more quickly at lower cost and with less
disruption. By having complete access to comprehensive data, physicians
can significantly improve care outcomes.”
Building on its success in connecting more than 100 institutional
customers to approximately 22,000 physicians, 4medica has combined its
robust outpatient ordering and resulting system, its electronic
prescribing (e-prescribing) solution and its integration ability with
hospital information systems to create the new IHR platform. The IHR is
especially suited to the needs of small- and medium-sized community
hospitals striving to provide connectivity to their physicians
and show meaningful use without having to invest in a complex and
capital-intensive EHR. While the IHR offers an alternative, it can also
be collaborative with both inpatient and outpatient EHRs to provide
connectivity and system interoperability.