Carolinas HealthCare System Selects Picis to Automate Operating Rooms in Seven Facilities.

WAKEFIELD, Mass. -- Mature product functionality will take the hospital into the future and impact its bottom line

Carolinas HealthCare System (CHS), the largest health care system in the Carolinas and the fourth largest public system in the nation, will implement Picis CareSuite to automate clinical and administrative documentation, caregiver workflow and patient tracking within the operating rooms (OR) across seven CHS facilities.

CHS wanted to replace its current disparate OR management systems -- both electronic and manual -- across its facilities in order to streamline processes, improve efficiency and promote best practices, all of which will have a direct impact on the bottom line. A multidisciplinary committee conducted an objective vendor selection process, which included evaluating the features of each vendor's solution through extensive product demonstrations, RFP responses, and interviews and visits with existing customers.

According to Alan Smith, CHS vice president of clinical systems, Information Services, CareSuite was found to have a richer functionality than competitors' systems and provided a more solid clinical base for the future. "It was important to us to select the vendor we felt had the best current product functionality, as well as a comprehensive vision for their product," Smith says. "Even though we have other vendors' clinical systems installed in our hospital that could have been expanded to the OR, we felt the other products weren't going to take us where we wanted to go into the future."

The operating room is a large revenue driver and is quickly becoming one of the most important hospital applications according to Cliff McNeely, ancillary systems manager, Information Services at CHS. McNeely adds, "Ultimately, a mature system should help our hospitals realize benefits such as improving inventory management. Having access to the automated data, the Picis system will provide better utilization and control of our inventory and resources, streamline our processes, and help save us money."

After visiting Picis customer sites, the CHS selection team was impressed by Picis' capability to deliver all the product functionality needed, including OR management, anesthesia and PACU automation, perioperative patient tracking and enterprise reporting across all facilities. Susan King, RN, BSN, CHS OR project leader, Information Services, says, "Picis' clinical enterprise reporting capabilities are very important -- especially for the OR directors. By having one perioperative system across all ORs, we will be able to run reports and benchmark all of our facilities against one another in order to identify best practices."

Initially CHS will focus on the foundational applications: surgical scheduling, preference cards, billing and OR nursing documentation -- replacing the hospital's legacy OR system. Additionally, Picis will provide perioperative patient tracking and advanced data analysis tools. Future plans will include the advanced clinical applications for anesthesia and PACU environments.

As part of this implementation, CareSuite will seamlessly integrate with other information systems at CHS, such as the hospital information system, billing and materials management.

About Picis

Picis provides healthcare information systems that automate clinical documentation, workflow and business practices in the perioperative and critical care environments. Picis' integrated operating room management and clinical information system is the only solution in the industry that delivers total perioperative automation today. Picis solutions are installed in more than 700 medical centers and integrated delivery networks (IDN) worldwide, including the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, HMA, Inc., Sutter Health, the Methodist Hospital in Houston, and the New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Headquartered in Wakefield, Massachusetts, Picis has expert sales and technical support staff in North America, Europe and Asia. In 2004, Picis was named one of the top 100 healthcare IT companies, by revenue, in the Healthcare Informatics report. Picis maintains partnerships with IDX Systems Corporation (NASDAQ: IDXC) and Lawson Software (NASDAQ: LWSN). More information is available at www.picis.com.

About CHS

CHS owns, leases, and manages hospitals, nursing homes, physician practices, home health agencies, radiation therapy facilities, physical therapy facilities, managed care companies, and other health care-related operations, comprising more than 4,410 licensed beds and approximately 17,000 employees. Located in Charlotte, N.C., Carolinas Medical Center is the flagship facility of CHS. As one of North Carolina's largest hospitals, it serves as the regional referral center for western North Carolina. More information is available at www.carolinas.org.