Tenet Healthcare expands pact with NTT DATA Services for new projects

Tenet Healthcare has worked with NTT Data Services on healthcare information technology projects for 20 years, and the organizations now are entering a new multi-year agreement.

This time around, the partners are focusing on creating more efficient technology infrastructures and application systems for Tenet hospitals, physician practices and affiliated outpatient centers.


Tenet will be working to streamline service delivery models, while NTT DATA will supply platforms to improve the care experience, which will include globalized applications, infrastructure, security support and development services.

“This agreement fits into our larger digital transformation strategy that prioritizes innovation and a customer-first mentality,” says Ron Rittenmeyer, executive chairman and CEO at Tenet. “We are committed to continuous advancement of our technologies and processes, which will create a better experience for our caregivers, physicians and patients.”

With 100,000 employees, Tenet operates 65 hospitals and about 500 additional healthcare facilities, including ambulatory surgery centers, urgent care and imaging centers, and other outpatient facilities.

Here are other new contract wins and go-lives reported during the past week.

• Connecticut Orthopaedic Specialists, with three sites in the state, has selected a healthcare collaboration platform from Updox to ease how staff coordinates care, processes digital documents and securely communicates with internal staff, referring physicians and patients. Features of the platform include secure text, document management, broadcast communication and reminders. Inter-office messaging enhances the patient experience and allows the practice to be more responsive to patient and provider needs.

https://www.ct-ortho.com/

• Cerner is continuing to sign information technology contracts with critical access hospitals, enabling them access to affordable applications via the Cerner Millennium electronic health record. Lake Health District, a critical access hospital in south central Oregon, is the latest to sign with Cerner. Millennium will replace five disparate systems across the hospital and clinics, providing a single source for patient data to be accessed across multiple venues of care. Lake Health District saw the value of moving to a single EHR across the organization, says Charlie Tveil, CEO.

• Allina Health, which owns or operates 13 hospitals in parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin, along with 90 clinics and other provider sites, will collaborate with Excel Medical, an innovator in modernizing cardiac telemetry and medical device integration. Excel Medical’s Lighthouse program creates opportunity for delivery systems to contribute the design and development of cutting-edge innovations to improve clinician workflows across Epic applications. The goal of the program is to increase physician satisfaction and efficiencies by delivering near real-time physiological data across Epic’s applications and eliminating paper processes.

https://www.allinahealth.org/

• University Hospitals Health System in northern Ohio, with 18 hospitals and 50 health centers, will implement the population health software of NextGen to help the organization enhance patient care. University Hospitals is one of the nation’s largest accountable care organizations, serving more than 575,000 lives.

NextGen looks at claims data from insurers and patient medical records to identify care gaps that need to be addressed, such as ensuring women over 40 are getting a mammogram. Data analytics will help primary care doctors quickly recognize and capture care gaps and potential health risks, says Mark Schario, vice president of population health at University Hospitals. “And, because the data pulling tool also pulls from payer claims data, we obtain a more comprehensive patient health history,” he concludes.
https://www.uhhospitals.org/