Press/Digital Systems Support The World's Firt Paperless Hospital
Digital Press & Analysts News
Digital Equipment Corporation
Maynard, Massachusetts 01754-2571
Editorial contact:
Ethel Kaiden
(508) 467-2347
DIGITAL SYSTEMS SUPPORT THE WORLD'S
FIRST PAPERLESS HOSPITAL
Digital and Cerner Corporation team-up with Health Care
International to create technologically advanced
computer-based patient record
MAYNARD, Mass. -- July 11, 1994 -- Digital Equipment Corporation
today announced that their partnership with strategic business
partner Cerner Corporation has resulted in the creation of an
advanced Computer-based Patient Record (CPR) at Health Care
International (HCI) hospital headquartered in Clydebank, Scotland.
HCI, a $270 million, 260-bed medical center, became operational on
June 27th and is being heralded as one of the most advanced care
hospitals in the world.
HCI is using Digital's hardware platform, along with software
from Cerner Corporation to develop and implement a worldwide
information system. It marks the beginning of a new era in
Computer-based Patient Records and will virtually eliminate paper
records from the practice of medicine.
"Digital has been working in partnership with health care
institutions and strategic business partners such as HCI and Cerner
Corporation for the past 25 years," said Ivan Boyd, Director of
Worldwide Healthcare Marketing at Digital. "Our affiliation with
HCI and the technology being used for this first paperless hospital
in the world exemplifies Digital's continued commitment to provide
our customers with the best price performance, technology, partners
and integration services. The CPR will greatly improve the process
of medical care and should dramatically reduce healthcare costs
while saving lives."
The unique hospital, hotel and conference complex has
eliminated traditional patient paper records from the practice of
medicine and has instead replaced them with a CPR that allows
physicians throughout HCI and around the world, to retrieve and
transmit medical information through telecommunications lines. The
CPR was developed in partnership with Cerner Corporation of Kansas
City, Missouri, and HCI's in-house information service team.
Cerner's suite of software applications known as Healthcare Network
Architecture (HNA) will run on Digital's hardware platform. HNA is
an information management architecture designed to automate the
patient process for diagnosing and treating a patient's medical
problems, both in the short and long term, across the inpatient,
ambulatory and community settings.
According to Jim Wiczai, Chief Executive at HCI, "What has
been developed here between Digital, Cerner and ourselves is
something that we believe will change the nature of health care
delivery internationally by improving the efficiency and quality of
care, while simultaneously providing access to comprehensive data
for research purposes. As a result of these benefits, the highest
standard of care is provided at a much lower cost to our patients."
CPR eliminates the traditional system of maintaining thousands
of files, many of which are several inches thick, accessible to
only one person at a time, in one place at a time. As a result,
accessing specific information is a painstakingly slow process,
particularly as paper medical records are not available in
approximately 30% of patient visits. The CPR also improves the
process of medical care and reduces its cost. Surveys of paper
records indicate that physicians spend up to 40% of their time, and
nurses up to 50% of their time, searching for information and
writing patient records. Similar tests have shown that more than
10% of all laboratory tests are unnecessarily duplicated.
To support the hospital abroad, HCI has established a network
of referral management offices in Greece, Italy, Cairo, Abu Dhabi,
Saudi Arabia, England and the United States (Boston) -- all of
which will be linked to the CPR system in Scotland.
Rick Taylor, Senior Director of Information Services at HCI
said, "Paper medical records are the bugbear of clinical staff and
have remained unchanged for 50 years. Technology and software are
now available for all hospitals to replace them at a cost they can
afford. A close partnership between our clinically trained
analysts, Cerner and Digital has exploited this opportunity to
develop a far more advanced CPR and this has been done more quickly
and less expensively than any other hospital in the world. Paper
records also provide crucial information for numerous other users
ranging from hospital mangers to health care reimbursers and policy
makers in government. The CPR has the potential therefore to
affect health care policy and provision throughout the world."
Digital Equipment Corporation is the world's leader in open
client/server solutions from personal computing to integrated
worldwide information systems. Digital's scalable Alpha AXP
platforms, storage, networking, software and services, together
with industry-focused solutions from business partners, help
organizations compete and win in today's global marketplace.
####
Note to Editors: The Digital logo, Digital and Alpha AXP are
trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation.
Healthcare Network Architecture (HNA) is a
trademark of Cerner Corporation.
Health Care International (HCI) is a trademark of
Health Care International Hospital.
CORP/95/550
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