DMC Children's Hospital Selects Pediatrics EMR

Lions and Tigers and Red Wings, oh my!  The Motor City's infamous Detroit Medical Center Children's Hospital of Michigan decided this past November to implement a pediatric EMR and EHR by Allscripts, according to a press release.

Allscripts, the lucky winner of the cutting edge pediatric hospital's selection, was selected for their clinical sophistication and their ability to integrate with third-party systems.  The DMC Children's Hospital is currently using Cerner for their inpatient health information.  The implementation will coincide with the opening of the Children's Hospital of Michigan Specialty Center-Detroit in 2012.  With Allscripts, the Children's Hospital will be able to use one record that will cover all specialties as well as primary care, enabling communication between surgeons, specialists and other providers who treat the same patient.

"With the opening of the Children's Hospital of Michigan Specialty Center-Detroit in 2012, this agreement ensures that all clinical services provided at our newest facility and all of our other outpatient facilities throughout Southeast Michigan, will utilize an electronic and paperless documentation system," said Herman Gray, M.D., Hospital President. "This collaboration will complement our robust electronic medical records initiatives in the acute care setting. Our partnership with Allscripts will help us continue to provide high quality level ambulatory pediatric care delivered in a safe environment."

Detroit Medical Center Launches Advanced Smart Room

The Detroit Medical Center's Harper-Hutzel Hospital unveiled the template of their new Smart Room to the public for an open house on March 3rd, 2011.   The objective of their new innovation was to create a hospital room where all medical devices, IV smart pumps and beds feed data directly into the patient's electronic medical record (EMR).  Health care providers can monitor data such as cardiac telemetry waveforms, temperature and other vitals in real time.  Nurses are also given smart phones networked with the medical devices that will alert them of any critical alarms, such as heart rhythm disturbance.  Streamlining the input of data is anticipated to improve the quality and efficiency of care and minimize work flow steps.  This is important because hospitals are now now tight on budgets and looking for new and innovative ways to improve not only the efficiency of health care but the cost-effectiveness of delivery.  Patients and their families can also watch the data feeds and progress in the room on the patient's bedside personal health record screen.

Being a front runner in electronic health care is not new to the Detroit Medical Center.  The Smart Room being only  the tip of the technology iceberg.   In 2010, the DMC won Health Care's Most Wired award for its fourth straight year, beating out Johns Hopkins. The award is based on how hospitals use information technology for business, infrastructure, inpatient and outpatient quality and community health.  Also in 2010, the DMC reached a Stage 6 in EMR implementation, a big feat because very few have made it to a Stage 7.  According to HIMSS Analytics, the creators of the EMR Adoption Model, a Stage 6 is fully implemented physician documentation as well as radiology PACS systems in at least one patient care service area.