Subject: Health System Pioneers Information System
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:Doug Allred MCHS (336) 832-8659
Alan Ying MercuryMD (877)917-5066
Greensboro- Moses Cone Health System has completed the first phase of a pilot project that puts up-to-date patient information in the palms of the people who provide patient care. The system, called MData, uses handheld devices utilizing the Palm operating system. It is the product of Durham-based software company MercuryMD Inc.
Instead of logging onto a computer terminal and looking up information on patients in the hospital, a doctor simply slides a handheld device into a docking port in one of several towers scattered throughout The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital. By the time the doctor returns with a cup of coffee, the device is ready. In it, names and room numbers of the doctor's patients plus their lab work, pathology reports and other test results. Using this information, the doctor can prioritize rounds and have complete and up-to-date information when he talks with patients.
"It is incredible what this device has been created to do, " says Dr. Patrick Wright, pulmonologist. " It saves me about an hour and a half to two hours a day."
The pilot project started in April when MercuryMD asked Moses Cone Health System for a chance to demonstrate its system. "What amazed me was how quickly MData was up and running," says John Jenkins, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Moses Cone Health System. "Since all of the doctors already had Palms, we had to spend very little time teaching them to use it."
Twenty doctors were initially in the pilot project and, as word got around, others asked to join. The project has since been expanded to include a group of pharmacists. More doctors and pharmacists will be added as the project moves out of its pilot phase.
Moses Cone Health System plans to work on another pilot with MercuryMD, a version of MData designed for nurses. It promises to allow nurses more time with patients by cutting the time they spend leafing through patient records and charts.
MercuryMD Inc. is a Durham, North Carolina hospital information systems integration company whose products deliver patient data to the handheld devices of health-care professionals. The systems promise to increase staff efficiency, improve patient care, decrease medical errors and shorten length of stay. For more information, visit www.mercurymd.com.
Moses Cone Health System was recently named to H&HN (Hospital and Health Network) magazine's list of the most wired hospital and health systems in the nation. Moses Cone Health System is a not-for-profit hospital system composed of five hospitals, extended care centers and various clinics. It was founded in 1911 with a trust established by Bertha L. Cone in memory of her husband, Moses H. Cone. More than 6,800 employees provide high tech, high touch health care to the people of Guilford County, Rockingham County and the surrounding areas of North Carolina and southern Virginia.
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