Stanly Regional selects McKesson's Paragon HIS to replace longstanding IT vendor

Stanly Regional Medical Center, a 119-bed healthcare provider in Albemarle, N.C., recently became the latest hospital to select McKesson's Paragon^® hospital information system (HIS) and application hosting from McKesson Managed Services™ after deciding to replace its longstanding IT vendor. A single-database, fully-integrated clinical and financial system, Paragon is innovative, yet affordable. The solution's advanced functionality enables hospitals to more efficiently manage clinical and revenue operations, driving improvements in performance, productivity and patient care.

During the past year, Paragon has increased its market share by 33% as a growing number of hospitals switch to a reliable partner to help them enhance care and to assist them in achieving meaningful use. Built on an open Microsoft platform, Paragon has been rated Best in KLAS for Community HIS in the Top 20 Best in KLAS Awards: Software & Professional Services report every year since 2006.

"We realized that our existing system wasn't designed to address today's expanding healthcare requirements," said Al Taylor, Stanly's president and CEO. "With meaningful use deadlines on the horizon, Paragon clearly emerged as the right choice for Stanly Regional - to enable us to meet those deadlines as well as our aggressive clinical and financial objectives."

Application hosting will expand the partnership between McKesson and Stanly Regional by providing expert technology and application services. The hospital's new technology will be remotely hosted in McKesson's data center, expanding the capacity of the provider's hardware, implementation and support resources.

"McKesson is working with us to provide the resources that will allow us to meet our goals on our timeline," Taylor said. "By utilizing application hosting, we can free our staff to focus on patient care. As one of eight managed hospitals in the Carolinas HealthCare System (CHS) planning to deploy Paragon, we look forward to increased efficiencies across our operations both here at Stanly Regional and among these regional hospitals."

Paragon recently received electronic health record (EHR) modular certification, deeming the software capable of enabling providers to meet the Stage 1 meaningful use measures required to qualify for funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The solution was tested and certified under Drummond Group's EHR Office of the National Coordinator Authorized Testing and Certification Body (ONC-ATCB) program.

"With Paragon, we're enabling hospitals like Stanly Regional to replace their outdated information systems with contemporary industry-proven technology that enables them to cost-effectively drive improvements in performance," said Jim Pesce, president, Paragon, McKesson Provider Technologies. "And with McKesson's Managed Services model, we can partner with the hospital to help them quickly achieve the clinical and financial benefits they are seeking."