"There are hundreds of examples of how having an integrated system can help care quality in the ED," says Myra Mengwasser, a director at Noblis Inc., a Falls Church, Va.-based consulting firm. "It could offer more information so that clinicians don't have to reorder tests or re-enter information, which could reduce wait times. The ideal system would be that when a patient comes into an ED, that ED would have access to all their previous encounters at the hospital or their other physician practices. That will require a significant investment in I.T."
Some hospitals also are linking their EDIS to their picture archiving and communication system to accelerate radiology report turnarounds. And others are linking them with bed management, respiratory therapy and medication management applications, says Barbara Cox, senior principal at Noblis.
"About 10 years ago, it was common for vendors to sell an ED system as a niche application and then require hospitals to deal with integrating it," Cox says. "But now hospitals are changing their processes and demanding an ED system that already can tightly integrate with various clinical applications."
To read the feature story from the August 2008 issue of Health Data Management on next-generation EDIS, click here.
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