ATLANTA–(BUSINESS WIRE)– As part of a major clinical initiative aimed at establishing more patient-centered care, Liberty Hospital, a 250-bed community hospital located in Liberty, MO, has successfully activated integrated clinical components of Eclipsys’ Sunrise Enterprise™ suite of solutions. As part of a rolling implementation strategy, Liberty Hospital chose to first transform its emergency department (ED) operations — typically the most daunting area of the hospital to install technology because of the critical need to quickly capture data to triage multiple patients simultaneously. Within six months, Liberty Hospital emergency physicians moved from paper and white boards to Eclipsys’ industry-leading computerized physician order entry (CPOE) system and electronic documentation and charting solutions to improve the speed and quality of placing both medication and non-medication patient orders.
Now Liberty Hospital’s inpatient physician orders, routine patient encounters, as well as all patient admissions are carried out electronically by emergency nurses and physicians. Evidence-based order sets used with the CPOE system are promoting standardization of patient care decisions in the ED, while inpatient and referral physicians are receiving more legible chart information in support of better continuity of care. In addition, the activation of Eclipsys’ integrated pharmacy information system, Sunrise Pharmacy™, is supporting improved patient safety by providing an electronic medication administration record.
“When we embarked upon the Eclipsys technology initiative, we selected the emergency department as a good place to incubate and showcase the benefits of physician adoption of CPOE and clinical documentation,” said Dr. Brian Robb, Emergency Department Medical Director, Liberty Hospital. “Our approach was from a physician’s angle. Most of our inpatient traffic comes through our emergency room, so now our inpatient physicians already have experienced the benefits of the technology and how it supports delivering more patient-centered care. The high level of success we’ve achieved to date positions us well to take the next step toward activation of inpatient use of CPOE.”
The rollout of Eclipsys’ technologies within Liberty Hospital’s acute care settings is ongoing. The incremental use of enabling technologies is supporting the regional medical center in a steady progression towards achieving the expected “meaningful use” requirements of The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) of 2009.
“According to the nurses in our department, the Sunrise applications have significantly improved the documentation of patient care,” said Cheryl Phillips, RN, CEN, Emergency Department Director, Liberty Hospital. “Our nurses believe the documentation is much more complete because they now have cues to help them remember. Anecdotally, a community physician thought one of our new charts he received had been dictated because it was so complete. He could read everything that had been done to the patient and he even knew what the emergency physician had considered in the care of his patient.”
