GE Healthcare, a division of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), has announced that Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network (LVHHN), one of the nation's first digital hospitals and the largest academic community hospital system in Pennsylvania, is rolling out GE's Centricity® Electronic Medical Record (EMR) solution to up to 1000 local primary care physicians and specialists.

Transitioning physician clinical practices from paper to digital records helps physicians share critical patient information securely across the entire continuum of care. Robust and simplified single sign-on access to other Centricity applications, such as GE's Centricity Enterprise, Radiology Information System (RIS) and Business Solutions, helps break down potential barriers to true collaborative patient care.

"Today, 20 percent of a patient's care is provided in the inpatient setting, while 80 percent is provided by a patient's primary care physician and specialists in an ambulatory setting," explains Harry Lukens, LVHHN senior vice president and chief information officer. "The information within each of these settings exists in silos, not easily accessible to multiple healthcare providers. In addition to being costly and inefficient, these silos can have a negative impact on patient safety."

When providers have access to a patient's comprehensive medical data, they will be able to deliver better care. For example, when a patient arrives at Lehigh's emergency department (ED), the staff there will be able to consult both inpatient and outpatient records and rapidly determine whether the patient has any known allergies to antibiotics or other medications; get a list of current prescriptions; and check for previously diagnosed conditions that may be contributing to the patient's symptoms. After discharge from the hospital, a patient's primary care physician will have access to the inpatient record to see exactly what transpired and continue appropriate care. Specialists and primary care providers will be able to consult while looking at the same up-to-date medical record at the same time - even if they are miles apart.

As a digital hospital and often-recognized industry innovator, LVHHN has made significant investments in healthcare technologies. Lehigh has reported that the combination of full hospital-wide implementation of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and barcode medication charting has helped achieve a 44 percent reduction in medication errors. LVHHN has also implemented Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) for digitally storing x-rays, MRIs, CT scans, mammograms and other tests; paperless charts; an all-digital catheterization lab; and an award-winning remote ICU telemedicine system. With the implementation of GE's Centricity EMR in primary care settings and outpatient specialties, LVHHN bridges the inpatient and outpatient information silos to create a seamless and more comprehensive view of patient information promoting faster, safer and more efficient care.

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