Piedmont gets software to better match patients with providers

Here is Health Data Management’s weekly roundup of health information technology contracts and implementations.

• Piedmont Healthcare, with seven hospitals serving 2 million patients in Georgia, has selected the ProviderMatch suite of software from Kyruus to match patients with providers who are best suited to care for them. The goal is to enhance patient access, including online scheduling of appointments, while offering a consistent experience across the organization. The software also enables organizations to keep their provider data up-to-date.

• Medical Center Health System in Odessa, Texas, will use master patient index cleanup software services from QuadraMed to prepare for its go-live on Cerner’s electronic health records system this spring. The vendor beat out other competitors because the cleanup services are done in-house in a secure facility, and the vendor has additional capabilities for managing the MPI on an ongoing basis, according to Gary Barnes, CIO at the 402-bed medical center. QuadraMed is a division of Harris Healthcare.

• Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Ill., this past week started deploying an indoor GPS app service to aid patients and visitors with way-finding. The app also guides drivers to the right parking location. Having late or missed appointments because of navigating the facility can cause stress and anxiety, and CIO Michael Sutter calls the new technology from Connexient a game-changing step for a better patient experience. Carle Foundation Hospital is the 26^th major medical center to adopt the software.

Also See: The future of tech: 16 trends for 2017 through 2022

• The Department of Defense has awarded a $14 million contract to Vocera, which sells a wearable badge-based wireless hands-free communication system for providers and other employees to talk with each other. The U.S. Army Medical Command will use the technology in 23 facilities across the globe. The DoD tested the system at Evans Army Community Hospital in Colorado, finding a 50 percent decrease in the number of patients who left the emergency department without being seen, and in the family care ward nurse response times increased by 75 percent while falls decreased by 81 percent. The voice communication platform integrates with more than 120 clinical systems.

• Enterprise image management vendor Sectra has new business at an 11-physician radiology group practice in South Africa. The software suite includes a picture archiving and communications system, a vendor-neutral archive, advanced visualization tools for 3D and anatomical linking, and lesion tracking. The product also is being marketed to other providers in the nation.