Christus Health Embarks on System-Wide Deployment of Electronic Medical Record System from MedicaLogic.

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 2, 1999--Following the announcement of their consolidation, the Texas-based Sisters of Charity Health Care System and Incarnate Word Health System have embarked on a new shared technology initiative.

The two organizations -- now known as Christus Health -- have committed to a strategy leading to the use of electronic medical records (EMR) throughout their ambulatory practice network, and plan to begin using the Logician(R) EMR system from MedicaLogic, Inc. starting later this year.

Christus Health, which now ranks among the ten largest Catholic health systems in the U.S. with 32 hospitals and a growing number of ambulatory clinics and outpatient specialty centers, will initially install Logician in two large family practices. Logician is seen as the fundamental tool for automating all clinical workflow. It will also interface with supporting ambulatory functions, such as laboratories and transcription services, and will feed into the health system's clinical data repository (CDR) that will be established for system-wide care delivery and quality analysis and community-wide health management.

George Conklin, Christus Health interim chief information officer, said Logician is an important component in the health system's goal to function as a fully integrated care delivery system. "It is fundamental to ensuring that a patient's information will be available to any clinician, at any point in the spectrum of care we provide. It will make for better treatment on any medical episode, and for better management of one's lifelong health."

A team of physicians, non-medical professionals and information technologists -- led by Elmore Rigamer, M.D., Regional Medical Director for the Louisiana Region of Christus Health, -- selected Logician in the Fall of 1998 following a review of commercially available EMR packages.

The MedicaLogic system was favored for a number of reasons, Dr. Rigamer said, including its real-time capabilities. "Logician is distinct in that enables clinicians to build a note while the patient encounter is in process. This eliminates the tedious, often after-hours task, of having to enter encounter information in order to complete a note," he said.

A second differentiator, he said, is the functionality in Logician called the Evaluation and Management (E&M) Advisor. "This feature in Logician analyzes the coding entered for a patient exam, and displays missing or inappropriate coding during the encounter. It virtually eliminates the likelihood of a bill for service being denied by a payer, or returned to the clinic for explanation or adjustment."

Logician's interface capability drew high marks as well; particularly its ability to tightly integrate with laboratories and other services. Dr. Rigamer said physicians especially liked the system's pharmacy module, which does automatic medication interaction checking, and triggers prescription orders in accordance with the pharmacy guidelines of a patient's payer.

Finally, the EMR team was impressed by MedicaLogic's KnowledgeBank(TM). Located at www.medicalogic.com, it allows physicians to download encounter forms, note templates and other documents that have been developed and successfully used by other Logician users, and avoid having to create them from scratch. " For a clinic working hard to get productive with Logician, this time-saver will be greatly appreciated," Rigamer added.

In addition to the attributes of Logician, Conklin said MedicaLogic's process for implementing the system was a major point in the company's favor. "They have a well-tuned process that is repeatable from deployment to deployment." As a result, he said, after a brief preparatory period, each clinic slated to use Logician should be up and running on it in less than three months. The process is underway, he said, at the first pilot site, a family practice clinic, in Houston with 50 attending and resident physicians. The second pilot site, also a family practice clinic, is slated to implement Logician in July or August, with the subsequent enterprise-wide deployment to follow thereafter.

Christus Health is a faith-based health and wellness ministry consisting of 32 hospitals and long-term care facilities as well as dozens of other health services in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Utah. The system will take a leadership role in the health care field, now and in the next century, furthering its mission to extend the healing ministry of Jesus Christ.

MedicaLogic provides leading electronic medical record solutions for the ambulatory environment. Customers are served by MedicaLogic's national network of distribution partners, implementation partners and the company's own sales and implementation personnel in 20 offices around the country. For more information on MedicaLogic, go to www.medicalogic.com.